I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.
It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion – let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.
But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it’s the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways…so really no difference).
What’s the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there’s people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don’t see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck…
The text needs to be better formatted . I skipped by it a lot at first because it looks like spam.
Make a cleaner way to display the info
That might depend on your client. It’s a lot better than it used to be with spoiler tags now
Yep. I’m not against it at all in theory but had to block as it’s just atrocious to see on every post, taking up way too much space.
I used to be a fan of it, but in the past couple of years I’ve seen MBFC rate sources as “highly credible” that are anything but, particularly on issues involving geopolitics. That, plus the inherent unreliability of attempting to fix an entire news outlet to a fixed point on a simple Left <-> Right spectrum, has rendered it pretty useless, in my opinion.
There days I’m much more of the opinion that it’s best to read a variety of sources, both mainstream and independent, and consider factors like
- is this information well-sourced?
- is there any obvious missing context?
- is this information up to date?
- what are the likely ideological biases of this writer or publication?
- What is the quality of the evidence provided to support the claims made in the article?
And so on. It’s much better this way than outsourcing your critical thinking to a third party who may be using a flawed methodology.
Would you then be posting your conclusions? Like, if you’re gonna do that work on some of these posts anyway… may as well share.
When I was on in Reddit I used to do it all the time, but writing everything out, organizing it and including citations etc. can be rather time-intensive.
These days, I’ll leave a quick comment on a post if I have enough time, but nothing major.
writing everything out, organizing it and including citations etc. can be rather time-intensive.
That’s why I like MBFC. It’s a lot of effort, and even if I don’t agree with them on everything, it gives an idea.
Just don’t take it too seriously, I would say. Not every news piece from the same source is going to be of the same quality or bias.
I find it useful at a glance, specifically when I don’t recognize a niche source. There’s a lot of “alt” media under random names. This helps flag them.
For mainstream, you can easily make your own call. You should be exposed to enough of it.
I downvote it when its opinion is clearly wack. Like when it tries to give Washington Post a highly trusted rating after all the inflammatory, biased shit they’ve been putting out.
I use an instance that does not display or parse downvotes or permit them locally.
So I don’t see the phenomenon. I don’t care about downvotes. I only see the upvotes; which are a far better indicator to me as to how useful a post I made is. If someone posts trash or extremist things; I block them. If they try to argue in bad faith or with far too extremist of a viewpoint, I block them.
The bot doesn’t always get the most upvotes but it does have it’s uses. As someone who has used the Ground News app in the past; I have a sense of their rating scale and I do find that it helps classify things; although you should always use your own discretion and not just blindly trust the bot.
But most people who downvote this bot, do so for completely wrong reasons. Usually they’re upset because they disagree with the assessment of the bot, or do not understand it’s scale. Maybe they don’t like their viewpoint’s position being laid bare for all to see.
Maybe that should be explained more; and there’s posts on Ground News’ website that EXPLAINS how their rating system works. Perhaps the bot should link them.
It thinks that the guardian would have only medium credibility
It promotes the existing power structure, which some people think is no bueno.
For example, if you post this:
https://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/01/30/ret.axis.facts/
the bot will say it is a highly accurate source with highly factual reporting so people will tend to believe with certainty that the U.S. should invade Iraq.
I do because I shouldn’t even see bots due to my Lemmy settings. Whoever controls it needs to actually flag the fucking thing as a bot.
I also have only seen it posting clearly right-wing bs and claiming the source is a left-leaning outlet.
So it gets it wrong sometimes. It’s gonna.
I agree that it needs to be flagged as a bot if it’s not already though. Excellent point.
it is flagged as a bot, it has the bot tag on the account if you look at its profile, it’s been tagged that way since it was implemented, cause I was going to complain about it if it wasn’t
There’s a lot of criticism of the bot implementation and mbfc in this thread but no criticism of why it was implemented.
The whole point of mbfc bot was to reduce the mod workload. By (hopefully) exchanging a bunch of posts examining the source of a link, mods hoped to have fewer fights to wade into.
A person could say that’s just what happens when you run an English language community during American election years, and there’s a degree of truth to that.
I think that the mods of the world communities the bot is in want some way to restrict speech along the lines of their own combination of political axes and see the bot as a way to do so under the guise of “just checking facts”.
I am not invoking free speech as a negative criticism here.
What would be possibly more healthy for the mods is to develop a political line and clearly say “if you speak outside this system of understanding you may be modded upon”.
I actually meant to start a thread one of these days if we can’t ban it! Glad you started the conversation!
My main concern is that by attributing a tactfulness and political rating to them, we’re attaching weight to that. But who does these ratings? Especially when a pop/mainstream mag like the Rolling Stone is classified as “left” the same that explicitly politically left publications like Jacobin are also “left”. That just strikes me as odd.
Extremists hate being fact checked. The reality is that you can fact check the fact checking but that can also be fact checked.
Other people clearly don’t think it’s a helpful resourcem
You don’t have to have an alternative in order to disagree.
That’s not how life works.
Just because I don’t know the formula of Hydrochloric acid doesnt mean I can’t disagree with someone saying it’s Barium and Oxygen
You don’t have to have an alternative in order to disagree.
That’s not how life works.
Just because I don’t know the formula of Hydrochloric acid doesnt mean I can’t disagree with someone saying it’s Barium and Oxygen
I don’t think that metaphor holds true. We’re talking about a website or a tool, not a fact.
If you’re going somewhere that’s a 6 hour flight away, you don’t say “That’s too long” and decide to walk/swim instead.
If you decide you don’t want to go, that’s fine. Block the bot, lol
An airplane is a means of travel not a tool. The bot osnt even a tool, it’s a biased shortcut.
It’s like just going to cnn to see if something is true because you respect their opinion.
Other people clearly don’t think it’s a helpful resourcem
They should block it.
It gets weird when folks start trying to keep everyone else from having it available as a resource.
So people can just downvote it instead right? That’s literal direct democracy at play - if there’s more people that like the bot they’ll upvote it and it will have a positive score - saying “just bury your head in the sand if you don’t agree with this message” is the reason we’re in this political mess in the first place…
Personally I find the downvote/up vote system to be super unproductive, the only thing it accomplishes is squashing the minority opinion, I keep the score system disabled for the comments section as a whole, it makes life easier and prevents me from being effected by populous/bandwagon bias. It still sorts by score for top-level but, it made navigating so much much peaceful.
Over all and in general sure. But for things like bots it’s really good feedback.
Sure - do whatever you want. There are users on this very instance that I downvote every post they make rather than block.
I also have comment(s?) in this very thread about when I downvote it.
Unless your goal is to spread misinformation. Anyone that knowingly wants to spread propaganda is going to severely dislike it and be forced to come up with some excuse to be against it, that is more acceptable than “it keeps telling me my russian propaganda is bullshit”.
We do have a small pro-Russian contingent on here after all. We also occasionally get a MAGA type.
Personally I do appreciate it, the wikipedia and Ground News links are convenient, I would occasionally manually google those anyway. News consumption is one of the main reasons I’m on here in the first place though, so I might be an outlier in that regard.
Unless your goal is to spread misinformation
EXACTLY
This is why anyone vehemently opposed to it is an instant 🚩for meMmmm yes everyone who wants to get rid of the conservative corporate disinformation bot is themselves trying to spread disinformation.
Projection, that’s totally original.
In America, that is not conservative in the slightest, unless you’re coming from a hard communist position. What’s the corporation?
MBFC
Yeah, it’s just owned by one dude named Dave, funded mainly through user donations.
Oh because that’s better?
Can you even point to a post where the bot calls the source out as propaganda (in whatever choice of words it would use to indicate this) or highly untrustworthy? I’ve literally never seen it say anything but left, left center, or center on any source and usually always highly trustworthy or trustworthy.
No, it will not specifically identify propaganda. Could just check their entry for RT if you wanted, I’ve never bothered to look. That’s a Kremlin funded publication though.
That has more to do with the fact that centre-right/right/far-right sources are seldom posted to lemmy and the communities implementing it generally prefer factual reporting.
Here are some examples of other ratings:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/goteborgs-posten/
Disinformation is dangerous. That’s how we got the white “alternative facts” thing in the first place. We shouldn’t tolerate it at all.
Nobody in this comment section has provided a single instance of it being disinformation. But people sure are claiming a lot of shit without backing up it one bit. I’m inclined to believe that they’re most likely far right trolls who disagree with their favorite news outlets getting labeled something.
MBFC itself is biased and unreliable. On purpose or not it’s system has the effect of pushing the GOP narrative that mainstream news is all leftist propaganda while right wing propaganda is normal. It does this by not having a center category and by misusing the center lean categories it does have.
So for example national papers with recognized excellence in objective reporting are all center left. And then on center right, you have stuff like the Ayn Rand Institute. Which is literally a lobbying organization.
Not having an alternative isn’t an excuse to keep using something that provides bad information.
So you missed this comment then? And the ones where they point out any pro Palestinian source is rated badly?
There isn’t a single link or source for literally any of these claims in any of the comments. So yeah I’m still pretty sure it’s just people making shit up until they can back up a claim, even one.
That’s because you can check it all on MBFCs own website.
Not if they don’t provide a link to the news source they’re talking about. So yeah, still no proof, source, nothing. Pretty clear it’s your bias at this point.
Thanks everyone for your comments and information. Thank you OP for making this thread. I will now begin downvoting MediaBiasFactCheck bot
MBFC itself is biased and unreliable. On purpose or not it’s system has the effect of pushing the GOP narrative that mainstream news is all leftist propaganda while right wing propaganda is normal. It does this by not having a center category and by misusing the center lean categories it does have.
So for example national papers with recognized excellence in objective reporting are all center left. And then on center right, you have stuff like the Ayn Rand Institute. Which is literally a lobbying organization.
Not having an alternative isn’t an excuse to keep using something that provides bad information.
Same reason sites like Ground News also upset me. Like “yeah sure I totally needed to read that HUNTER BIDEN is absolutely the reason the Democrats are evil totally makes sense oh yeah”, like nah sometimes we can just say these people are massive hypocrites and their opinions and news are literally not factual or useful or important
I’m not going to be surprised when we find out MBFC and Ground News were actually info ops from corporations.
I’m not going to go that far — they’re just poor implementations of things we all want. When GN was created there was significant pushes from so many other companies to create their best little aggregators and summarizers. I’ve always felt it should be more possible to actually “ground” sources and journalists to the actual truth, than whatever these people deem as center. It’s ironic to call it grounded when its foundation is a political landscape mired in lies and grandiosity.
Yeah probably. But I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yeah, the Overton window has been pushed so far right that neutral sources with no added opinion are now considered center-left.
Reality has a left wing bias.
I think the bigger problem with MBFC is they don’t have a center category. Until they get one they are forcing themselves to present all news as biased one way or the other. Leaving no room for news organizations that are highly objective.
I wouldn’t call it bad information. As a non-American, I just read it as “American left”.
“Centre-left” combined with “Factual Reporting” basically means “grounded in reality”, lol
The problem is many people aren’t tuned into political ideology. The second they see left or right they sort it by their internal bias. So it’s whitewashing a lot of conservative European sources. It’s also rating American far right positions as center right, so absolutely whitewashing them, even for someone who understands MBFC is an American site with American prejudices.
Honestly I’m surprised they’ve lasted 8 years without this getting called out, it fairly should fairly well jump out at anyone who has studied politics.
I’d be happy if someone wanted to make a better site that had better answers and a more international scale. We don’t have it, though
Bad information is worse than no information. It is actively harmful.
I don’t think it’s bad information. It’s information that needs to be taken in with an understanding of its source…like most information.
That’s not how that works. People stop at the labels. If you want to change that then go after the public education system. That’s just like telling people to watch Fox News with an understanding of its bias. It doesn’t work. And as pointed out elsewhere, MBFC isn’t operating objectively. It whitewashes extreme conservative publications while listing organizations like AP News as biased. It doesn’t label American and international sources differently and it doesn’t tell you it’s labeling everything with their own concept of the American political environment.
For a supposedly objective organization it sure isn’t interested in self reflection.
Are you trying to tell me that it’s a problem to suggest people use critical thinking with the results of MBFCbot in addition to the post, and instead the solution is to suggest there should be no bot and people should use critical thinking skills for the post itself?
We already know how many people stop at the headlines.
As well, you seem to be focusing on the bias component. I think the reliability/fact-checking component is much more important.
The Ayn Rand Institute actually is center right. They promote strictly free market capitalism, of the laissez-faire variety. This is distinct from any sort of ethno/religious-nationalist position you’d find on what we’d call the far right, espoused by groups like Praeger.
Regarding the newspapers, if they tend to endorse dems in elections, it’d be difficult to argue that they don’t tend to editorially lean at least slightly left.
Note, a lean does not make something misinformation. If someone thinks that center-left means leftist propaganda, that is their mistake in thinking. That does not mean a bias rating service should recategorize everything to fit a left-is-center perspective, failing to take into account wherever the current national overton window happens to sit.
We should want analysis to be from the perspective of a typical fast food eating, reality tv watching, not-super-engaged American if we can manage that, so we can see the breadth of American perspectives in relation to each other. Not some activist-driven wish to reframe America to fit our own perspectives on the truth, regardless of how we may feel about the current sociopolitical environment. Otherwise we risk simply reinforcing our own media bubbles and steadily weakening our own ability to come up with arguments our opposition may potentially find convincing.
Note, it’s important to remember that center does not necessarily mean good. It just means center-for-America. In our current situation, center is not a very good place to be at all, imo at least. I mean, you’re halfway to Donald Trump if you’re in the center. Not good.
The libertarian, “drown the government in the bathtub” group are centrists now?
Are you serious? Social issues aren’t the only thing you can swing left and right on. This is a massive pro corporate blindspot if MBFC continues that as a trend.
Nobody is saying lean makes something misinformation. We’re saying the way the categories are used deceives, “a typical fast food eating, reality tv watching, not-super-engaged American” into believing good objective sources are running biased articles.
And the American left is the center in the rest of the world. Playing into the American idea of centrism only makes the project biased, not some high minded goal. That’s some of that good exceptionalism propaganda.
And reframing things to fit our own perspective? From the person defending the end of the federal government as a centrist position.
You put a lot of high minded stuff in there but it comes down to American Exceptionalism trying to force its views on the rest of the world and a shit take on enlightened centrism. The facts on the ground are clear. MBFC plays favorites for conservatives.
The libertarian, “drown the government in the bathtub” group are centrists now?
American centrist. That’s like 3/4 right :-p
The “laissez-faire” part got me. When anyone leaves gov and especially biz to do their thing without steering and criticism, then people are gonna suffer to make someone some shillings.
No, they’re center-right. The center right still believes in representation and voting, where the far right is an authoritarian movement. This is an important distinction.
So, an editorial slant and objective, fact-based reporting are two different things. Your bias comes in with things like article selection, what you are and are not reporting. You can be strongly biased, but still do objective, fact-based reporting. This is why these are two separate categories. This is not a problem, and both of these independent categories most definitely deserve to be reported independently of each other.
It has nothing to do with exceptionalism. It has to do with performing measurements that are calibrated to the local environment. Someone pointed out that it makes less sense for world news, but for US news and politics communities it is definitely useful.
When did I say the end of the federal government is a centrist position?
You’re a very dishonest arguer. This has nothing to do with any form of American superiority. Simply discussion of American affairs from a perspective calibrated to American people. Saying that this has usefulness is not saying it is superior or exceptional, those are things you, not I, are saying.
Lots of what you’re saying smells like bullshit, but I would like to point one specific thing:
The center right still believes in representation and voting, where the far right is an authoritarian movement. This is an important distinction.
That’s not how it works, left/right and libertarian/authoritarian are different axis, because left/right are economic terms, they can be replaced by collectivism/individualism, just like how the other axis can be replaced by Anarchism/Totalitarism. You can have an extreme libertarian-right (e.g. anarcho-capitalist) or an extreme totalitarian-right (e.g. fascism), just like you can have an extreme libertarian-left (e.g. Kibutz) or extreme totalitarian-left (e.g. communism as implemented in the USSR).
Also there’s a third axis of conservative/progressive. Just because you live in a country where conservatives and right wings are the same doesn’t mean everyone else does. For example in the two right wing examples I gave, one (anarcho-capitalist) is extremely progressive while the other (fascism) is extremely conservative.
In the end you can think on the 3 axis according to different questions:
- How should money be split? This is left/right or collectivism/individualism
- Who should rule? This is libertarian/totalitarian or anarchism/totalitarism
- How to deal with new ideas? This is conservative/progressive
For example, taxes and where to use them are (in general ) a left/right debate, whereas security is (usually) a libertarian/totalitarian debate, and abortion, drugs and most things related to new ideas are (again, usually) conservative/progressive.
Yes, that’s fair. I was trying to remain within the oversimplified standard US perspective on these things, which does boil all of that down to one, single axis, largely as a result of our two party system. I agree it is a poor and inaccurate method though.
You absolutely do not have to be authoritarian to be far right. And the Ayn Rand Institute is libertarian. Their goal is to effectively end all governance in favor of corporations. So yes you are defending that.
And someone like MBFC presenting that as a centrist position of any kind is a giant problem.
You say I’m dishonest but you keep saying obvious things but then slipping in ridiculous stuff. Like saying MBFC should be more conservative because it’s American. But then ignoring that it rates international papers.
Is Al Jazeera doing endorsements now? BBC? Whose the British government backing?
You cannot have this both ways. It cannot be an American scale, available globally, rating globally.
No, libertarians advocate for small government, not no government. Someone still has to provide for the common defense, uphold laws, things like that. And far right is always authoritarian in some way, shape or form. I cannot think of a single government in history we would describe as far right that was not authoritarian. Also, there is a difference between seeking accurate classification of something from a certain perspective and defending it. You are not very accurate at describing things, including my arguments. Again, center does not equal good. Center just means center, and is often bad.
It does not matter if it rates international sources or not, if doing so for an American audience as an American organization, it should do so from an American perspective. There is nothing wrong with explaining to Americans how international sources fit into their established worldview.
Note, I never said MBFC should be more conservative. If anything they should be shifting slightly leftward as Trump’s popularity wanes, to track with the attitudes of the country. Not a lot though, the race is still close to even.
I don’t understand what you’re getting at with AJ and BBC endorsements, can you elaborate?
No. Small government sounds nice but it’s only ever meant two things. Privatization or deregulation and strict social laws. Depends on whose saying it. And libertarians are in the privatization group. No matter how you cut it, that’s a radical position. The center is occupied by the regulated market and public services the vast majority of Americans enjoy and like.
And it very much matters that it rates international sources. That makes it inaccurate by design everywhere outside the US. A disinfo op, meant to confuse people and whitewash conservative sources.
They shouldn’t be tracking any one country. There are objective definitions for political ideology.
Well, I’m with you that libertarianism is an impractical and harmful idea, most right-leaning positions are. This does not make it far off from our center, though, when the vast majority of things we interact with in the US already are privatized. Many prisons and schools, businesses, land, etc etc. All in the private sector. So, an ideology that wants privatization of what little we have left, like say, the post office, is not a particularly extreme position for our culture. A far more extreme position would be wanting to do away with our voting and implementing an authoritarian government, as Trump seems to want.
So, there actually is no such thing as some grand, objective scale, no matter what scale you use, attitudes can shift over time and different positions can be adopted or dropped by different points on the scale due to changing technologies, attitudes and situations. The most important thing is that the scale is consistently applied, and provides useful information to the audience. I would argue that the most useful information is provided when the scale is balanced between the various positions that its audience is familiar with. So, again, since its an American organization doing work for an American audience, I think it behoves them to remain accurate to American perceptions.
It should not be trying to change anyone’s mind, or change how they view the world, simply scale everything that’s out there in a way its audience can find approachable and understandable. It’s not intended to be a reform mechanism, but a service to the culture as the culture exists. This is not whitewashing anymore than the US itself is very whitewashed. But again, it’s not MBFC’s job to fix us, that’s what education is for, not news media or fact/bias checking. It is not an education tool.
We should want analysis to be from the perspective of a typical fast food eating, reality tv watching, not-super-engaged American
Why? Lemmy is a worldwide site.
Hm, you do have a good point. For the US news and US politics subs it’s important, but far less important for a global news community.
It also seems to ignore most of the posts that it could actually be helpful on. Like no-name blogs and Fox News.
I really like it, but I can see people being upset if it doesn’t align with their world view.
I for one, appreciate it.
Same here, it’s becoming a habit to check every source.
