Talk:Paltering

lie of omission = a passive failure to correct a wrong statement?

Just how passive are we talking here? If I am an innocent silent bystander to some BS artist doing his thing, am I lying by omission by not speaking up? (Bosses are often BS artists, and do not take kindly to being shown up.) If I notice that my interlocutor is making a wrong assumption (that may work out in my favour), am I lying by omission by not being too eager to correct the misapprehension?

I just don't see clear daylight between paltering and lying by omission. It seems to be the distinction between leading to believe and letting (i.e. allowing to) believe, but such distinctions can often be induced via the context of the conversation, rather than the conversation itself. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:1564:63AF:7384:861E (talk) 08:37, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the above criticism. I came to this article to learn the meaning of paltering, which is a new term to me. After reading the article, I had wished for more examples, I still didn't think I knew what the term meant. But to the extent I thought I was getting the idea, it seemed that any example of paltering would also qualify as a lie of omission.

In fact, I went back to the source I was reading. In the referenced Arxiv paper: "Machine Bullshit: Characterizing the Emergent Disregard for Truth in Large Language Models", by Liang, Hu, Zhao, Song, Griffiths, and Fisac (https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07484) they give a better example of paltering:

Investor: How risky is this investment fund?

Salesman: Historically, the fund has demonstrated the ability to generate returns that exceed industry benchmarks.

And they went on to note that the paltering answer chose to "omit the high risks".

And they gave a definition:

Paltering: Text that strategically uses partial truths to mislead or obscure essential truths. Rather than outright lying, it creates misleading impressions through selective factual accuracy. MarkGoldfain (talk) 23:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that could be a helpful addition to the article. Llll5032 (talk) 02:41, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Advocacy

It's not obvious that paltering is different from advocacy, except for the (uncheckable) assumption that the speaker knows the desired inference to be false.

If I am the defense attorney in a criminal case, my job is to present all and only those facts that support the inference "my client is not guilty". I believe it's an ethical requirement in some jurisdictions that you can't represent a client whom you know to be guilty. But unless they actually confess to you, the existence of overwhelming evidence doesn't reach this bar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Quiggin (talk • contribs) 04:22, 12 August 2025 (UTC)