Talk:2000 Mules

NPOV dispute

I am challenge the neutrality of this page. All sections of the Article are riddled with biased characterizations of the documentary's findings and conclusions. Although arguably unreliable, the news sources that dispute the documentary's findings have not proven it to be true but have only attacked its reliability. Thus, the article should be combed to hedge all biased wording, otherwise the NPOV tag shoud stay on the page. AnubisIbizu (talk) 16:42, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I should note that I also oppose the documentary's purported findings, but urge the editors of this page to sound more encyclopaedic. As yet, the page reads like an unreliable biased news article and not ob objective encyclopedia. AnubisIbizu (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Among the biased characterizations are

(1) that the central finding of the film is "false";

(2) that the film "presents no evidence that ballots were illegally collected to be deposited in drop boxes";

(3) that the film "opens with a misleadingly edited clip";

(4) A large excerpt with no citation support stating "AP explained that in various swing counties across the five states, True the Vote used phone pings to cellphone towers to identify people who had passed near ballot drop boxes and various unnamed nonprofit organizations multiple times per day, concluding that such people were paid mules for ballot collection and deposits. Experts said such mobile phone tracking was not accurate enough to distinguish alleged mules from many other people who might walk or drive by a ballot box or nonprofit during the course of a day, such as delivery drivers, postal workers and cab drivers. True the Vote asserted it had conducted "pattern of life" filtering of such people before election season; the AP noted limitations of that approach."

(5) that the film provided "no way to match them with the geolocation data".

I can add more later, these are only a few examples I found after a mere five minutes of reading. AnubisIbizu (talk) 16:59, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Every single one of these things is presented neutrally and with citation. Yes, even (4), which is cited in the sentence before and just needs a citation at the end. This has all been discussed before. "Neutrality" does not prevent bunk from being debunked. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:36, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, sir, I think that you are improperly injecting bias into your decision here. I can see that other users have contested the same, yet you have overridden that as well. I can see that you are an administrator, so I will concede to your authority on here, but this post is undoubtedly biased, and you have not addressed each of my concerns sufficiently as required by under WP: NPOV policy, which you have violated. AnubisIbizu (talk) 17:50, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Simply put, you are a biased administrator. AnubisIbizu (talk) 17:51, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Everyone is biased. Don't pretend that you are not. I am not acting as an administrator here, but as an editor. This article is sourced and written neutrally in debunking a movie based on false pretenses. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:32, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

That is your opinion. The film makes a reasonable argument that has not been proven empirically false. To say that is it false is argumentative, not factual. The same is true of saying that the film is true. The film might be true or false, but we do not know for a fact which is the case. Therefore, as an encyclopedia, we must be more objective. Acknowledging your bias does not make it acceptable. Do better. AnubisIbizu (talk) 19:09, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, given that some premises on which the film is based are demonstrably false (a fact, not an opinion), one might say that it's a violation of WP:SYN to conclude that the film's conclusions are false. However, I wouldn'tsay that is synthesis, that's just a WP:BLUESKY feature of logical deduction. Even so, it should be enough for the article to state that the film's conclusions are derived from premises proven false. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:18, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

With that I would agree ^ An objective consensus. Yet the current Article does not frame the discussion as you have reasonable suggested. AnubisIbizu (talk) 19:33, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

No, they’re not.

You are obviously saying that because you are unable to view this theme objectively.

The article is clearly filled with biased language and arguments. 76.149.30.215 (talk) 18:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Whereas this is a current event, and the article is slanted SO far, even in the lede, there should perhaps be an NPOV tag. Pacificus (talk) 13:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

This is not a current event and the article is not slanted. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussing what it does not include and needs to explain is a point of view does not belong in this article.DeknMike (talk) 03:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

lead: "Salem Media Group partially settled a lawsuit ..."

body: "The Andrews suit remained ongoing"

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_Mules&diff=prev&oldid=1230858463 soibangla (talk) 03:13, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

We should not have the word "debunked" in the lead sentence

@Anachronist, Anomalous+0, HangingCurve, JacktheBrown, and NatGertler: We never put a word before "a" and the year of a film in the lead sentence of a film article. It is sufficient that we have the heavily-cited word "falsely" in the second sentence. To have both words is redundant, and it's better to establish that it's debunked in the second sentence since the point of the first sentence is to explain what kind of film it is and who made it. Its content (or in this case, the veracity of that content) does not belong in the lead sentence. Songwaters (talk) 16:55, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm unsure why I'm being tagged here, as I've never edited the first paragraph of this article. However, I am utterly undisturbed by the presence of "debunked" in the opening sentence, just as I'm fine with phrenology being described as "pseudoscience" in its opening sentence. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Why did you ping me? JacktheBrown (talk) 21:25, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

They seem to have pung all-recent-editors-except-the-person-who-added-the-thing-they-want-removed. Then, not finding any support for their position, just went ahead and edit-warred the change anyway. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:19, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@NatGertler: Excuse me? I did in fact ping Anachronist. Songwaters (talk) 22:59, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Anachronist was not the editor who recently added the word to the article; they were merely the one who undid your first removal of it. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:13, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@EmmaRoydes: Your opinion is welcome here as well; my apologies for forgetting to ping you. Songwaters (talk) 00:15, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@SongwatersYes, it is an important distinction. Why? For starters, election denialism is dangerous misinformation, and in the US illegal in some sense. It's a dangerous and criminal form of denialism in the same class as holocaust denial. And as the film has since been litigated, as it destroyed the lives of others, the film is well documented in the press and willfully attempting to con its audience into believing in debunked & false conspiracy theories of 2000 widespread election fraud by the left.

Quite frankly, I don't understand your WP:POINT here? When it comes to subject matters driven by the WP:fringe of western civilization, we are supposed to inoculate Wikipedia. The famous example given in tutorials on editing here about flat-earthers. And even worse, this isn't some vanilla fringe like Bigfoot. So, pushing SO hard to keep this article 'falsely-neutral' feels and looks an awful like trying a WP:FALSEBALANCE you are pushing for. Hence, for all the reasons above, reverted.

As some false information about the world is NOT properly debunked (i.e. supernatural religious beliefs held by some societies), I can understand why we don't use that distinction in every case. That includes the existence of God, the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, or even alien life visiting our planet, and other interesting examples, though a scientific community would argue credibility that in some important sense those are debunked, empirically speaking. But it wouldn't be encyclopedic here for obvious reasons. Not so much, though, for politicized nonsense from the WP:FRINGE like climate change denial, holocaust denialism, election denialism, birtherism about candidates like Obama, and so on and so forth.

2000 Mules not only pushes "false" misinformation, but it's lost enough lawsuits, and been recalled in enough instances, and uniformly dismissed by enough academics publicly in the forensic sense, that it also holds the distinction of a "failed" documentary in the information/truth sense. But because of the damage it has already done to the American psyche, and because of its financial success and powerful sway over the American fascist MAGA cult who still buy into it, it can't be called a failure per say insofar as populism goes... but at least we can say definitively that it was "debunked" insofar as empiricism goes. EmmaRoydes (talk) 17:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes I am getting pinged. I am not sure why. My edit summary speaks for itself and I have nothing else to add. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:44, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

• I think that when dealing with WP:FRINGE material, it is best to be as clear as possible about the fact that it is fringe in order to avoid even incidental WP:PROFRINGE implications. This is especially true with the first sentence, which is the most prominent part of the article; I feel it's best to make it completely clear that any fringe subjects mentioned in that sentence are clearly identified as such within the same sentence, if possible. So I'd say "debunked" is appropriate - especially since you haven't really given any coherent rationale for why we'd consider removing it; handling fringe material properly is vastly more important than your minor stylistic concerns over possible redundancy. --Aquillion (talk) 17:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)