It’s interesting to me that the journalistic concept of “fact checking” got attached to social-media services.

The thing that fact checking does has almost nothing to do with how social media works, because it starts from the assumption of a good-faith effort to portray reality.

Admittedly, journalists probably also contributed to this slippage by using “fact checking” in a public-facing way, such as in response to new area or public speeches.

Allowing the concept to ooze into social-media management only undermines the journalistic project further.

Almost no citizen actually knows what fact checking is. It’s a term of art for an incredibly laborious process of mutual trust and collaborative verification inside a deliberate editorial context. It’s idiotic to use it in reference to performatuve rhetoric.

As long as I’m writing a thread here, let me add that the profession of journalism erred badly in keeping its professional practice secret, rather than educating the public about how that practice works, and thereby how it participates in public life.