To Be Literal or Contextual?

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Noting that many of the individuals with X’s over their faces actually won re-election, never served in Congress, or had left Capitol Hill for other jobs, the meme was rapidly dismissed by political journalists and commentators as “quite literally insane fake news.” Yet, Snopes issued a verdict that the meme was “True,” which it defines as “the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably true.” In turn, Snopes’ rating meant that the meme was not blacklisted by Facebook and instead free to continue going viral.

Why would Snopes assign such a verdict to a meme that the rest of the journalistic class had rejected as demonstrably and overwhelmingly false?

In the narrative describing its assessment, the fact-checking organization conceded its inaccuracy, but with an elastic caveat: “Although memes are frequently grossly inaccurate, this one got the general idea and numbers correct (even if the persons actually pictured in the accompanying photograph are difficult or impossible to identify).” In a subsequent update, it added that “some commenters who went through the photograph used in the meme in microscopic detail to try to discern the identities behind the tiny faces obscured with red X’s noted that they didn’t all correspond to the (unnamed) members of Congress whose seats were lost after they voted to repeal the ACA.”



https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...hoice_to_be_literal_or_contextual_138913.html
 
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