"Media Matters partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Center for New Community, and ReThink Media to release a journalist's guide to the network of anti-Muslim activists and surrogates spreading vitriolic rhetoric in the media and the best practices for countering these extremists’ misinformation.

The report “profiles 15 prominent anti-Muslim extremists, many of whom are associated with organizations identified by the SPLC as hate groups,” who appear frequently in the media, “where they spread falsehoods that too often go untested.”

The 15 anti-Muslim extremists profiled in the report are Ann Corcoran, Steven Emerson, Brigitte Gabriel, Frank Gaffney Jr., Pamela Geller, John Guandolo, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, David Horowitz, Ryan Mauro, Robert Muise, Maajid Nawaz, Daniel Pipes, Walid Shoebat, Robert Spencer, and David Yerushalmi."

https://www.mediamatters.org/people/david-horowitz

"Under Horowitz's direction, the Freedom Center has launched a network of projects giving anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies a platform to project hate and misinformation. Funding these figures and ideas fits into Horowitz's multi-front information war against the political left, which he claims has a stranglehold on mainstream culture."

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-horowitz

You can cut the nonsense now. You've just admitted I should consider your right-wing source unreliable until there is another left-wing source to back it up. That's your problem. It's not my job to find reliable evidence to support your claims.

So, go get the specific left wing sources for the specific information you presented in your posts or you have no reliable evidence to present by your own determination, and you've wasted four pages of both our time before admitting that.

David Horowitz is not on the "extreme right." Nor does he support any "hate group." — Thorongil

Meaningless bare assertion. To consider a site unreliable solely on the basis that you disagree with its conclusion is obviously to say nothing at all unless you can present evidence as to why you are right and it is wrong.

Yes, in conjunction with right wing sources on the same topics. — Thorongil

And I'll consider the information you presented as reliable in conjunction with left wing sources on the same topics. Please present them and we can continue.

'm not doing that until you acknowledge you understand the distinction I made between the two websites, although it should be obvious why I dismiss it. — Thorongil

I acknowledge that there is a distinction in the format of the information (one is in the format of "news" and the other in the format of a review). Now give me your objections. Why is this website unreliable in your view?

I have been talking about the reliability of the information itself. Now you have shifted to talking about how the presentation of that information might be biased. — Thorongil

There is no shift at all. Is it hard for you to understand that the way you collect (compile), present and edit information can change the content, context and reliability of the information? For example, you might collect information that was not true or properly vetted, or you might change the context of some true information through selective editing to make it appear in a different light etc etc. This is done all the time by governments and news organizations the world over. It's called propaganda. To put it another way, would you consider news that came from a left-wing website that explicitly set out to attack the right reliable?



Just present your objections to Michael's source. I've asked you several times for them. Or, we'll have to presume you don't have any.

Or try this formulation if you like (both amount to the same thing):

Information compiled, edited and presented by someone who is clearly biased (on any side) is significantly more likely to present a biased viewpoint than that compiled, edited and presented by someone who is not clearly biased. Again, self-evident.

On the other hand, I don't concede that Michael's source is clearly biased. In fact, because it presents criticism of both the right and the left, it would seem more likely to be unbiased.

The events compiled and edited and presented by an author you now admit is "clearly biased and on the right". So, obviously it's reasonable to suspect he may not have compiled and edited and presented that information in an unbiased way. QED.

In other words, information compiled, edited and presented by someone who is clearly biased is clearly unreliable. That's self-evident.

(I want to reiterate that I am still not taking a position on how much if any of the information is true or false. We can't know that for sure. I'm restricting myself to making a point about reliability).

So, you have our reasons. But you have still provided no reason to doubt the information on the site Michael presented. What is your reason?

So, go ahead and demonstrate that what it says is false otherwise you have to accept the information on our source as reliable according to your own argument.

(To break it down for you:

If you think that in order for us to reject the information on a source as reliable we must demonstrate that it's false then until such a time as you demonstrate that the information on our source is false then you need to accept it, i.e. you need to accept that Horowitz's website is "A questionable source that exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible information and/or is fake news."

But given that your argument then requires you to accept that your source is untrustworthy, you've made our argument for us.)

Your only alternative is to admit that there is no positive reason for us to consider the source you provided as legitimate. And again, your case falls apart.

That site doesn't infallibly determine the reliability of sources. — Thorongil

But...

Doesn't mean what it says is false or *ahem* untrustworthy. It might mean that, but then you'd have to demonstrate that. — Thorongil

Now give your reasons for distrusting our source.

You assume what it reports to be false because you have deemed it illegitimate. — Thorongil

At least, if nothing else, stop misrepresenting my position.

I don't know if the information is correct or not and I'm not presuming it is or not — Baden

That's actually the third time I've posted that. Not only that but I actually dealt with the information on the presumption it could be true and responded to it in that way in my recent long post. Are you reading the discussion?

As well as that, I already explained the genetic fallacy to you several times. It's one of the easiest fallacies to understand and I'll bet there's not one other person reading this who doesn't get it by now. On top of that, if you think it applies to us for doubting your source, it must also apply to you for doubting ours. I honestly don't know what your mental block is here. The fact is that neither of us is committing the genetic fallacy by questioning the reliability of our respective sources. It's a perfectly legitimate position to take in principle. What it comes down to is the reasons for our questioning and how strong they are on either side.

So, here are my reasons. I deem your source untrustworthy because:

a) According to its front page It explicitly sets out to attack the left.
b) Horowitz is known for providing misinformation and is an alleged racist
c) It gets the following report from a site checker that deals with both left and right-wing sites:

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible information and/or is fake news.
Bias: Extreme Right, Hate Group

Now why do you deem our source unnacceptable? If you are not willing to provide reasons, and want to end the conversation before doing so, you are simply conceding that your position that it's not legitimate is baseless.

So, having dropped your claims of the "genetic fallacy" applying to questioning information based on the source of that information—now that it suits you to question the source of the information we have provided, you have no evidential basis for your comments about BLM, so those claims fail. And maybe you can explain why you wasted so much of our time by arguing for a position concerning the genetic fallacy you are willing to drop the second it becomes inconvenient for you to hold it. That suggests you were being disingenuous from the start.

I'll only add that the source @Michael provided explicitly sets out to question both left and right-wing websites whereas the source you provided expressly sets out to discredit the left. So, on what basis do you question its legitimacy? So far it seems to be merely because you don't like the information it provides. That's not a tenable position (i.e. you need to provide actual reasons for doubting the source as we did).

I mean, I don't see any basis for legitimacy of that "fact check" website, but whatever. — Pneumenon

And I didn't see any legitimacy for the right-wing propaganda site (and I had much more justification for doubting it imo). Glad we understand each other now.

Anyhow, on a note unrelated to that previous discussion but still keeping with the general question of the thread, deconstruction of the prevailing narrative always meets with a peculiar kind of doxastic opposition, which is that evaluative standards (and even intelligibility) are reciprocally determined by the status quo. Institutions play into this, of course. — Pneumenon

What point specifically do you want to make in relation to the OP?

OK, well if you are happy to concede all but that point, then fair enough, we agree and can move on.

Also, I see no response to Thorongil's point about the Vox op-ed.... — Pneumenon

Vox
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/vox/

Factual Reporting: HIGH

Notes: Vox is an American advocacy news website run by Vox Media, co-founded by liberal columnists Ezra Klein, Melissa Bell, and Matt Yglesias and launched in April 2014. Vox presents with left wing bias in reporting and story choices. There is some use of loaded words, but most articles are sourced to credible information.


Discover the Networks (David Horowitz)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/discover-the-networks/

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible information and/or is fake news.

Bias: Extreme Right, Hate Group — Michael

Now respond to my post.

Thanks, that puts the final nail in a coffin that was already six ft under. I presume we'll now get an ironic and amusing questioning of the source of the bias check, and a convenient forgetting of all the fake genetic fallacy claims.

Ok.




I'll explain again the genetic fallacy and the basic principles of gathering reliable evidence for use in a debate, particularly in supporting an accusation of criminality, and I ask you to please try to take the blinders off so we can have a sensible dialogue: My objection is to the extra work I would have to do to verify the information from a clearly biased source. I have not dismissed any argument on the basis of its origin, which would entail the genetic fallacy.

As in, if I dismissed Thorongil's argument that BLM are a terrorist organization based on the fact he is a biased right-winger I would be committing the genetic fallacy. But not only did I not dismiss it, I asked him for evidence so we could debate it. If it were the case, however, that any attempt to assess the credibility of evidence (which is all I did and I did visit the site—as did andrewk) automatically made you guilty of the genetic fallacy, our court system and science itself would as a whole be guilty of a continuous genetic fallacy for demanding that evidence be credible. This is how bizarre it is for you to claim it is a fallacy to question the reliability of a source. It happens all the time in academia and the courts for very good reasons which should be obvious.

On top of that none of the so-called evidence is analyzed, it's simply copy-pasted there. So, there is no argument from Thorongil to deal with in that post. Usually when you are giving evidence for an argument, you need to make the link between the evidence and your argument explicit. In other words, tell your interlocutor why the piece of evidence does the work you want it to do, i.e. support your claim.

So, I did look through the questionable information anyway and could find nothing but instances where members or associates of members either behaved badly or allegedly committed crimes or allegedly said other members were going to commit crimes etc. By that standard it would be easy to prove both the Tea Party and the Republican Party are terrorist organizations. In fact, the Tea Party has been labeled terroristic by the left and even the mainstream media. Again, unhelpfully.

https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/60202_Page2.html
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/news_columnists/gilbert_garcia/article/Democratic-ad-brands-tea-party-Republicans-5864039.php

And this is the irony of all this, I could go to a left-wing website and copy walls of text concerning bad things Tea Party members have done in order to prove the Tea Party is a terrorist organization, and of course you would dismiss it. The difference is that I would not make the claim, not because I couldn't do exactly the same thing that Thorongil is doing, but because that's the type of hysterical polarizing language I object to on both sides. And you said you did too—until Thorongil did it. Remember, this is how we got into all this, through a discussion of hysterical language. Yet you two continue to try to justify it on your side simply because it's on your side while at the same time writing (in the case of @Pneumenon) unintentionally ironic posts about circling the wagons and so on.

We also close discussions without prior warning. Especially deliberately click-baity ones.

Originally posted wrong smilie. Phone fingers. :nerd:

:up:

Cheers. That saves me time. :up:

I may just have to research it myself if he can't back up his claim. I'm actually interested why anyone would call BLM terrorists.

Do you at least understand that part yet?

Do you want me to explain the genetic fallacy to you before you run?

I might dismantle some of that anyway as it's easy enough to do so, but your intransigence is silly. We should do this properly.

Yawn. It's standard procedure to link to an unbiased source in any serious written debate that requires evidence to be analysed. That's the first step. I don't know if the information is correct or not and I'm not presuming it is or not. So, let's dispense with the strawmen. I'm asking you to link to a reliable source in your post because I'm not going to trawl through an obviously biased right wing site to try to find forward links to a reliable one.

Of course, the source of information is important in a serious debate, and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and David Horowitz are not reliable sources of information about the left. Why would you think they are? And it's not my job to find reliable evidence to support your accusations. I made you a reasonable offer to provide links in your post to acceptable sources (you don't even have to change the information) and your refusal to do that suggests you can't find any. So, you have no case. That's your loss not mine.

Of course. I only asked him to wait. I could give some explanation but I'd rather let TL give the reason herself. I don't necessarily think René intended for the discussion to come across the way it did, so maybe we can sort it out amicably.

Something constructive for you to do would be to find some reliable sources to back up the claim BLM are a terrorist organization presuming you agree with it. These side comments don't really add anything to the discussion.

I've marked them and taught sourcing. That was my job for a long time. Your attitude is a bit bizarre. You want me to verify the information from a clearly biased source by having to go to the website and check it rather than simply provide information from a non-biased one. How about you go there, find the links, and put them in your post. That would be fine by me as long as the links point to reliable sites. OK?

She said she was going to send a PM, so maybe wait for an explanation.

I meant she might be asleep or working or something. We all live in different time zones.

Sorry, but have you two jokers ever even written a paper in your lives? You know where you need to provide evidence from a source that can be taken seriously? When your professor told you, you can't just copy-paste from anywhere on the internet? I'm happy to deal with this issue, so please get your act together, get some info from a source that's not polluted and we'll deal with it.

So, if I claimed the Republican party is a terrorist organization and provided the antifa website as a source, you'd be fine with that? Why don't you just make an effort and provide evidence from a reliable source? Is it laziness or what? I'd like to seriously address this issue if you're capable of that.

@TimeLine deleted it. I'm sure she will come and explain when she is ready. We are not at your beck and call 24/7.

So, you went and copied a wall of text from a right wing website expressly dedicated to discrediting the political left by David Horowitz who has a history of misinformation and on top of that is an alleged racist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz

"Horowitz has been criticized for material in his books, particularly The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, by noted scholars such as Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin. The group Free Exchange on Campus issued a 50-page report in May 2006 in which they take issue with many of Horowitz's assertions in the book: they identify specific factual errors, unsubstantiated assertions, and quotations which appear to be either misquoted or taken out of context."

"Chip Berlet, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming slavery on "black Africans … abetted by dark-skinned Arabs" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others".

It's instructive to know where you get your ideas from but this source is trash. If you say these instances are documented though, go find them from a reliable source and I'll deal with them.

First of all, before I even look this, link to the source.

Well, a few of you told me I was being mean, so I apologized for it. And now you're angry at me for apologizing! You have invested considerable apparent effort into yelling at me for being a meanie, so the "grrr I'm too tough for this Mickey Mouse crap" thing comes off a little weird. — Pneumenon

Let's just call "cut" on this scene.

Also, why do you say you want to "agree to disagree" and then start arguing about the point you said you wanted to drop? This is inconsistent. I addressed the point you raised previously in the discussion with Maw. — Pneumenon

I presume there's no need now to argue about what we argued about what we should argue about. I wrote out what I think is important just now to avoid that. You might even agree with some of it.

I want to summarize my basic positions, or at least the ones that are most important to me, to avoid more quagmire:

1) There is a lot of hysteria around at present on both the right and the left.
2) Examples on the left include some of the names JP has been called during protests. (And probably in tweets too).
3) Examples on the right include some of JPs tweets, along with Thorongil's claims regarding BLM.
4) BLM is not a terrorist organization. And if you want to make a case for that very serious accusation, you need strong evidence. Smears, fallacious reasoning and attempted rhetorical tricks aren't going to cut it.
5) Hyperbolic rhetoric on either side leads to polarization, and is a bad thing. Let's not do it.