Of course you have to fact-check a debate
The reason we fact-check is without it debate is meaningless
The shortest possible post today, but the debate shows why fact-checking is important and why misinformation matters.
People use evidence to try to make their positions seem reasonable. This makes debates useful, because it advantages people who are right about things. For someone with a well supported position, evidence is easy to find. For someone with a poorly supported position, they are going to have to scrounge, and spin, and dodge. Do that enough, and people start to notice.
The reason why unchecked misinformation is so damaging to civic discourse is that it undoes these sense-making benefits of argument. If people with poorly supported positions can just make stuff up then they are at no disadvantage in a debate. And if that’s the case then there is no point to debate at all, or, for that matter, to civic argument. Sure, debates serve other functions. You still see the temperament of the candidates and so on. You learn what positions they hold. But as sense-making on issues it becomes worthless.
People have tied themselves into knots over this. Sometimes people say things like “It’s important to fact-check debates because otherwise misinformation gets out there.” And sure, I suppose. But pushing back on misinformation isn’t about controlling for some side effect of a debate. On the contrary, it’s an attempt preserve the dynamic which justifies the use of debate in public life. In the end it’s profoundly simple: unchecked misinformation undoes the sense-making benefits of civic discourse, and without functional civic discourse, democracy cannot work.
That’s it. Everything else is static.
I'm with you on this. At the same time I keep getting confronted by the apparent reality that the idea of a shared epistemic universe seems to be in dire straits. I repeatedly run into old colleagues and classmates who live in a radically different informational environment from me and a more select group of friends. Not having a shared reality makes it hard to agree on what a fact is. It often seems to come down to "You have your reality and I have my reality". There'll be a pause and then if not a clear statement, at least a strong hint "...and my reality is right". I'm not at all sure how you work around that.
a couple of lives ago I made this same point, but spending way more words than you did (https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-09-23/debate-moderators-cannot-allow-the-candidates-to-twist-the-facts). thanks for saying it this clearly.