There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker bot?

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…

rtxn ,

IIRC, it lists a zionist/anti-Palestine news website as highly trustworthy. I can’t tell which side is right, I have it blocked.

hddsx ,

What does Zionist mean? It hasn’t affected my life enough to actually look it up but I see it on every other article in the Israel/Palestine conflict.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

wikipedia has a fairly neutral article on it.

Today, it usually refers to one of two groups- the far right political faction in Israel that believe there can be no peace with a two state solution (i.e. no Palestine,) and that it’s their god-given right to murder all palestinians to acheive peace…

Or the christian zionists that support them because their own faith says their god won’t come to save them until they- the jews- rebuild their temple. or something. Fundies get weird.

hddsx ,

What? Wasn’t Israel originally the Palestine before a part of Palestine was designated Israel?

Lemminary ,

Precisely. Wtf.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3966c698-c155-401a-9a68-cf270503790b.png

FuglyDuck , (edited )
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

How far back do you want to go?

If we’re talking Bronze Age, then the exodus didn’t happen. Or rather, only a small handful of refugees showed up and their story eventually became assimilated into Judaea’s and Israel’s cultural narrative.

Tracing ancestry back that far is problematic, but both cultures have equally valid and long standing claims to the region.

It’s like the Hatfield and McCoy feud, except it’s existed since the start of the Bronze Age (or earlier,)

In more modern history, Palestine was a British colony taken during ww1 as the leftovers of the Ottoman Empire, when the Palestine Mandate was done in an attempt to back out, and Jewish militants attacked everyone involved eventually leading to the creation of the current State of Israel.

gedaliyah ,
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

No, but that’s a common misconception. Palestine has never previously been a country, but was a region of the Ottoman Empire, then a part of the British Empire that more or less consisted of modern day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.

Under the Ottomans and the British, there was a Jewish minority, mostly in the region of Palestine, but also in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc.

Starting in the 1800s, Jews living in Europe began to move to the region in larger numbers (as well as Jews living in other parts of the Middle East and Africa). This was primarily motivated by antisemitic events in Europe, but also similar to the national movements that led to Prussia becoming Germany, the pan-Arab movement, re-establishing Poland, etc.

Here is a photo of the 1931 Palestinian football team that included Palestinian Jews as well as Palestinian Arabs.

warm ,

Zionism is an ideology that believes in a Jewish state consisting of mainly Jews and which claim the land of Palestine. So Zionists want to take over Palestine to extend their Jewish state as they believe that land to be theirs.

(Correct me if I am wrong)

AbouBenAdhem ,

Sites can be biased and tendentious without being factually inaccurate, though.

my_hat_stinks ,

It’s possible to factually accurate with heavy bias, but since that would require selective reporting to enforce a single worldview I wouldn’t consider that “highly trustworthy”.

Consider the following hypothetical headlines:
“Teen Killed by Islamic Group During Shooting”
“Terrorist Shooting at Mosque, 20 Dead”

Both are technically factually accurate ways to describe a hypothetical scenario where a teen shoots up a place of worship before being stopped by one of the victims, but they both paint very different pictures. Would you consider both sources “highly trustworthy”?

rtxn ,

I’m not saying they can’t. I’m referring to a point that was championed in many a post by some .ml figures calling for the bot’s decommissioning. I don’t use the site (can’t even recall its name), and can’t speak for its credibility.

I guess I didn’t make it clear that it was second-hand information and not my personal informed opinion. In my defense, I was running on 4 hours of sleep.

Rottcodd ,

The alternative is to use your own brain.

The fact that people are so often so ignorant and/or ideologically blinkered that they can’t see plain bias when it’s staring them in the face is the problem, and relying on a bot to tell you what to believe does not in any way, shape or form help to solve that problem. If anything, it makes it even worse.

SteveFromMySpace ,

If you think you’re “immune” to the influence of biased sources you’re wrong.

imPastaSyndrome ,

I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all, but I’d say if you think the bot’s source is then I don’t know what to tell you

SteveFromMySpace ,

No I think MBFC is very questionable at times

Rottcodd ,

Of course I’m not “immune” - nobody and nothing is perfect.

But I pay attention and weigh and analyze and review and question, which beats the shit out of slavishly believing whatever I read.

SteveFromMySpace ,

So you have a very high opinion of your own discretion but assume everyone else is trash or what?

Where would you put yourself as a percentile? Let’s get granular here.

Rottcodd ,

The only competition here is between relying on ones own judgment vs. relying on a third party.

SteveFromMySpace ,

I didn’t say it was a competition or anything remotely like that. Please show me where I did if you believe otherwise.

I am just asking for an honest assessment of how you perceive your own judgment. So are you going to answer or not?

Rottcodd ,

I didn’t say it was a competition or anything remotely like that. Please show me where I did if you believe otherwise.

Okay

So you have a very high opinion of your own discretion but assume everyone else is trash or what?

Where would you put yourself as a percentile?

Right there. Obviously. In fact, that’s the exact point of a percentile - it’s a ranking system, which is to say, a competition.

So are you going to answer or not?

No.

SteveFromMySpace ,

I knew the % for my height and weigh growing up as it charted my growth, pretty basic stuff when going to the doctor. I wasn’t competing against anyone, it was just information. It seems you’re the one who is just narrow minded here. If you’re not going to answer then I’ll just default to the obvious: you think you’re special and that everyone else is an idiot/sheeple/etc.

Bye

14th_cylon ,

But I pay attention and weigh and analyze and review and question

and you do all that based on facts.

you can analyze, review and question facts and then form an opinion, but first step is to be able to trust the facts you read and that is where the rating of the source may be useful (if you are not already familiar with said source).

unless “using your own brain” is euphemism for discarding facts which doesn’t fit your opinion, then you indeed don’t need to know anything about trustworthiness of the source 😂

Rottcodd ,

No - actually I do the bulk of it based on presentation.

“Facts” fall into two categories - ones that can be independently verified, which are generally reported accurately regardless of bias, and ones that cannot be independently verified, which should be treated as mere possibilities, the likelihood of which can generally be at least better judged by the rest of the article. In neither case are the nominal facts particularly relevant.

Rather, if for instance the article has an incendiary title, a buried lede and a lot of emotive language, that clearly implies bias, regardless of the nominal facts.

That still doesn’t mean or even imply that it’s factually incorrect, and to the contrary, the odds are that it’s technically not - most journalists at least possess the basic skill of framing things such that they’re not technically untrue. If nothing else, they can always fall back on the tried and true, “According to informed sources…” phrasing. That phrase can then be followed by literally anything, and in order to be true, all it requires is that somebody who might colorably be called an “informed source” said it.

The assertion itself doesn’t have to be true, because they’re not reporting that it’s true. They’re just reporting that someone said that it’s true.

So again, nominal facts aren’t really the issue. Bias is better recognized by technique, and that’s something that any attentive reader can learn to recognize.

14th_cylon ,

In neither case are the nominal facts particularly relevant.

Double facepalm.

14th_cylon ,

It sounds like if the bot did not like your favorite source…

Rottcodd ,

No it doesn’t. That assumption just fits the strawman living inside your head.

Eutent ,

Bias can be subtle and take work to suss out, especially if you’re not familiar with the source.

After getting a credibility read of mediabiasfactcheck itself (which I’ve done only superficially for myself), it seems to be a potentially useful shortcut. And easy to block if it gets annoying.

Rottcodd ,

The main problem that I see with MBFC, aside from the simple fact that it’s a third party rather than ones own judgment (which is not infallible, but should still certainly be exercised, in both senses of the term) is that it appears to only measure factuality, which is just a tiny part of bias.

In spite of all of the noise about “fake news,” very little news is actually fake. The vast majority of bias resides not in the nominal facts of a story, but in which stories are run and how they’re reported - how those nominal facts are presented.

As an example, admittedly exaggerated for effect, compare:

Tom walked his dog Rex.

with

Rex the mangy cur was only barely restrained by Tom’s limp hold on his thin leash.

Both relay the same basic facts, and it’s likely that by MBFC’s standards, both would be rated the same for that reason alone. But it’s plain to see that the two are not even vaguely similar.

Again, exaggerated for effect.

just2look ,

MBFC doesn’t only count how factual something is. They very much look at inflammatory language like that, and grade a media outlet accordingly. It’s just not in the factual portion, it is in the bias portion. Which makes sense since, like you said, both stories can be factually accurate.

xmunk ,

Some people are pissed that the format is spammy? That’s the complaint I’ve heard.

I’d certainly prefer something like post tagging/labels but within the current feature set of lemmy I think it’s about as good as it could be.

Don_Dickle ,

I have never seen a bot that does good. Got sick of them on reddit and other sites. So when I see it here which is my safe haven. I will downvote or report it because it has not place here.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Or you can just block it to hide it…

Don_Dickle ,

Fuck that…not getting on admins or anything but sites need to get rid of bots unless they pay the site. And also get rid of clickbait shit that I saw on reddit but not here yet.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

The bot is made by the instance admins themselves, so don’t expect the bot to go away.

Bob_Robertson_IX ,

So, because you don’t like bots, they shouldn’t be made available to others who appreciate them? Fuck that.

The beauty of Lemmy is that you are in control of what you see, but that makes that you have to control it. Stop trying to dictate that I can’t have bots from instances that allow them.

Lemminary ,

There’s a setting you can toggle on the web UI. I hope it’s supported on mobile apps.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/75ff4159-b691-41aa-adee-41c5f4df22e5.png

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Enabling that option will also have an effect on mobile apps.

tyler ,

The bot was literally added by the instance admins. You think they should pay themselves???

Crazyslinkz ,

That’s what I said and was down voted for it. Oh well, that’s life on lemmy.

Also did that, blocked the bot.

Carrolade ,

!remindme 1 week

MindTraveller ,

I like the converts to metric bot on Reddit

ShepherdPie ,

That’s my gripe with it. Its single comment fills the entire screen of my phone when scrolling past and it uses gigantic font, a big separator line (?), and links mixed with text mixed with more links.

Additionally, it fucks with the “new comment” and “hot” sorting, depending on how active Lemmy is at the time, by spamming post after post with a comment even though there is no actual discussion happening.

NewNewAccount ,

You should use a client that supports all of the text formatting. On Voyager the bot’s comment is smaller than most when collapsed (which it is by default).

idiomaddict ,

And because it uses spoilers, when I click it to collapse the comment, it just expands

treadful , (edited )
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

I for one, appreciate that bot.

Lemminary ,

Same here, it’s becoming a habit to check every source.

imPastaSyndrome ,

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

ccunning ,

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.

Carrolade ,

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.

ccunning ,

Unless your goal is to spread misinformation

EXACTLY
This is why anyone vehemently opposed to it is an instant 🚩for me

ShepherdPie ,

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.

Carrolade ,

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.

ccunning ,

Some folks are just angry it exists and downvote it no matter what.

I’ll downvote it sometimes, early in the discussion, to get other comments above it and get it out of the way, but only if the source is a reliable one. I only ever really upvote it if I think the source needs attention called to it.

SpeakinTelnet ,
@SpeakinTelnet@sh.itjust.works avatar

“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”

After the third or fourth time it’s just spammy, and the bot formatting just doesn’t work on connect.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

the bot formatting just doesn’t work on connect.

That fault lies with the Connect dev though… the formatting used on the webUI works as intended.

SpeakinTelnet ,
@SpeakinTelnet@sh.itjust.works avatar

Probably, still remains that out of all the bots I’ve seen this is the only one with format issues. I believe a minimalist approach to be preferable for bots since their goal is spreading information over a large userbase with various client, from CLI to native web page.

goldteeth ,

“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”

That’s pretty much my gripe. One time I saw a post with maybe six, seven comments, opened it up, and they were all either the bot, or replies to the bot.

And even if you block the bot the post still shows up as having comments. So you’ll open up a post boasting the aforementioned six or seven comments expecting to find a lively debate, or at least a wisecrack about global affairs, and leave with a bunch of tumbleweeds and the lingering knowledge that somewhere, two or more people are arguing with a machine about whether or not it thinks the newspaper is any good.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

It would be nice if bot comments weren’t counted, at least as an option.

HottieAutie ,

“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”

Downvoting doesn’t address this. You can try hiding bots tho.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

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…

To express dissatisfaction.

There’s a lot of people that view the MBFC reports as themselves being biased, and to be fair, their process for generating the reports are opaque as fucking hell so we have no way to know how biased or not they are.

it’s also kinda spammy, and- IMO- not really all that useful.

just2look ,

Why do you say they’re opaque? They detail the history of the publication, the ownership, their analysis of bias within their reporting, and give examples of failed fact checks. I’m not sure what else you could want about how a publication is rated? I’m not saying it’s perfect, but they seem to be putting a solid effort into explaining how they arrive at the ratings they give.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Because their methodology is nothing but buzzwords:

The primary aim of our methodology is to systematically evaluate the ideological leanings and factual accuracy of media and information outlets. This is achieved through a multi-faceted approach that incorporates both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments in accordance with our rigorously defined criteria.

Despite apparently having “rigorously defined criteria”, they don’t actually say what they are.

just2look ,

They literally publish their methodology and scoring system.

mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/

So they do say exactly what their criteria is, and how it is scored. None of that is buzz words, it’s just a summary that fit in a few sentences. You can look at the full methodology if you want more than just that small bullet description.

I’m not saying that you have to agree with their scoring, or that it is necessarily accurate. I just think if you’re going to critique a thing, you should at least know what you’re critiquing.

Artisian ,
@Artisian@lemmy.world avatar

Bravo for bringing the notes. On a first glance, some of these feel like they require subjectivity (like, do we really believe the political spectrum is 1d?), but I agree I could run the computation myself from this.

just2look ,

There is definitely some subjectivity. Language isn’t something that is easily parsed and scored. That is why they give examples on the actual report about the kind of biased language they saw, or whatever other issues led to the score given.

I don’t think they mean for their website to be the end all bias resource. More of a stepping off point for you to make your own judgments.

protist ,

It’s crucial to note that our bias scale is calibrated to the political spectrum of the United States, which may not align with the political landscapes of other nations.

But what even is this false left-right, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican one-dimensional scale? The first thing they state on this page is that all this is inherently subjective. Who is MBFC to determine where the middle of this scale exists? If people want to seek out their opinion, that’s fine, but this is inherently a subjective opinion about what constitutes “left center” vs “center,” for example. I don’t get how MBFC deserves their opinion on every news post.

Also the formatting of the bot is awful as displayed on most Lemmy apps. On mine it’s a giant wall of text. Other posts/bots don’t look bad, just this one.

just2look ,

They cover what they consider left and right. This way you can judge whether it aligns with what you believe. And it allows you to interpret their results even if they don’t follow the same spectrum you do.

And if you know of a way to discuss political spectrum without subjectivity I would love to hear it. Even if you don’t use a 2d spectrum, it’s still subjective. Just subjective with additional criteria.

mediabiasfactcheck.com/left-vs-right-bias-how-we-…

protist ,

And if you know of a way to discuss political spectrum without subjectivity I would love to hear it.

Of course that doesn’t exist, my point is why does this specific subjective opinion get promoted on here?

just2look ,

Why does any opinion get promoted on here? Because somebody posted it. And then there is a voting system and comments for people to express their agreement or disagreement.

I honestly don’t care either way if the bot exists. I just think it’s silly that people are claiming that MBFC is terrible based on basically nothing. You can disagree with how they define left vs right, or what their ratings are, but they are pretty transparent about how their system works. And no one has given any example of how it could be done better.

tyler ,

Also if you actually read and understand their system, then even if you dont agree with it, you can recalibrate the ratings based on what you know their system works like.

superkret ,

It shouldn’t be done on Lemmy at all, which is why I downvote the bot every time I see it.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Oh look. You copied my link!

Sorry. No they don’t.

That’s not “rigorously defined”. It’s a bunch of weasel words and vagaries.

For example. In “factual reporting”, to get a “very high” score:

A source with a “Very High” rating is consistently factual, relies on credible information, promptly corrects errors, and has never failed any fact checks in news reporting or opinion pieces.

What does “consistently factual” mean? What qualifies as “a credible source”? What does “prompt” mean?

Those are all nice sounding words, but they don’t really tell you anything. Prompt could be anything from seconds to weeks. (And let’s be honest, probably varies from researcher to researcher.)

Oh they go into more detail….

A questionable source, for example:

Questionable sources display extreme bias, propaganda, unreliable sourcing, or a lack of transparency. They may also engage in disseminating fake news for profit or influence. Such sources are generally unreliable and require fact-checking on an article-by-article basis. A source lacking transparency in mission, ownership, or authorship is automatically categorized as questionable. Additionally, sources from countries with significant government censorship are also deemed questionable.

Who defines their extreme bias? What is propaganda?

Voice of America is literally a government ran propaganda service yet they assign it high factual, least-biased and high credibility.

Sorry, but their methodology isn’t a methodology, and the only thing that’s inherently reproducible is their fact check rating. Everything else relies on what their subjective analysis.

just2look ,

Consistently factual is exactly that. Both of those words mean actual things. And they go on to say that they can’t fail fact checks. And prompt corrections likely means that as a story develops, that if there were incorrect things reported, they are corrected as soon as the new information is available.

As for who defines extreme bias, it’s literally them. That is what they are saying they are doing. And they spell out what their left vs right criteria are. And how they judge it. Of course this is subjective. There isn’t really a way to judge the political spectrum without subjectivity. They do include examples in their reports about what biased language, sources, or reporting they found. Which allows you to easily judge whether you agree with it.

As for VOA, they say in the ownership portion that it is funded by the US government and that some view it as a propaganda source. They also discuss the history and purpose of it being founded. And then continue on with the factual accuracy and language analysis. You may not agree with it, but it is following their own methodology, and fully explained in the report.

Again, there isn’t anything saying you have to agree with them. It is a subjective rating. I’m not sure how much more transparent they can be though. They have spelled out how they grade, and each report provides explanations and examples that allow you to make your own judgments. Or a starting point for your own research.

If you can define a completely objective methodology to judge political bias on whatever spectrum you choose, then please do. It’s inherently subjective. And there isn’t really a way around that.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Consistently factual is exactly that.

So what constitutes “consistently factual”, then? if the ‘consistently factual’ means ‘always factual’, then the explanation of allowing ‘prompt corrections’ is unnecessary. A “correction” is different than an “update”, after all. so what rate of error is “rigorously” defined here?

Further, how do they deal with (the vast majority) of fact checkers, using qualified language like “mostly factual” or “misleading” or “out of context”. or “distorted”?

… And prompt corrections likely means that as a story develops, that if there were incorrect things reported, they are corrected as soon as the new information is available.

“likely…” They don’t say that. I wonder why they don’t just say that?

You’re assuming that’s what “prompt” means, but that’s… an assumption. as I said, it could be anything from seconds to weeks. I assume- i don’t know, lets just be honest here- that their language is intentional. which means it’s probably not that.

Seems like it would be a super easy thing to actually define. Like. ‘Consistently Factual’ could be “No more than X percentage of articles requiring corrections or otherwise failing a 3rd party fact check”.

… Of course this is subjective. There isn’t really a way to judge the political spectrum without subjectivity. They do include examples in their reports about what biased language, sources, or reporting they found. Which allows you to easily judge whether you agree with it.

So glad we agree on that.

As for VOA, they say in the ownership portion that it is funded by the US government and that some view it as a propaganda source. They also discuss the history and purpose of it being founded. And then continue on with the factual accuracy and language analysis. You may not agree with it, but it is following their own methodology, and fully explained in the report.

Compare, VOA’s to Al Jazeera’s. Which, Al Jazeera is Qatar-owned. even so, It’s widely considered a reliable news source; where as, VOA was literally forbidden from being served within the US borders precisely because it was propaganda, until 2013- when it decided to open up drops to the internet specifically to “counter” Al Qaeda messaging. (aka. propaganda.)

VOA:

Founded in 1942, Voice of America (VOA) is a United States government-funded multimedia news source and the official external broadcasting institution of the United States. VOA provides programming for broadcasts on radio, TV, and the Internet outside of the U.S., in English and some foreign languages. Some consider the Voice of America to be a form of pro-USA propaganda. However, VOA journalists are governed by its Best Practices Guide, which says that “The accuracy, quality, and credibility of the Voice of America are its most important assets, and they rest on the audiences’ perception of VOA as an objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information.”

Surveys show that 84% of VOA’s audiences trust VOA to provide accurate and reliable information. A similar percentage (84%) say that VOA helps them understand current events relevant to their lives. VOA is produced in 47 languages.

it should be noted that A), its so nice to know that their journalists are held to a standard. (I’m sure Al Jazeera journalists aren’t…) and b) that there’s a survey saying 84% of people that actually look at VOA is reliable. A survey conducted by… their board of governors… and the linked source is the appropriations PDF…

Compared to Al Jazeera:

Founded in 1996, Al Jazeera is an international news network owned by Qatar’s state through the Qatar Media Corporation. It is headquartered in Doha, Qatar. You can view their history timeline here and see Al Jazeera America’s leadership here. Dr. Mostefa Souag is currently Acting Director-General of the Al Jazeera Media Network.

now, I’m not saying Al Jazeera isn’t Qatari propaganda, it more or less is. but you see the the totally different tone here?

Now lets move onto the bias/analysis section. VOA:

In review, VOA presents the USA and world news from a United States perspective. There is minimal use of loaded language in news stories such as this: Officials Hope for Strife-Free Trump Visit to London and this Pompeo Seeks Common Ground on Iran, Huawei in Europe. Both of these stories are sourced from official videos or credible sources. Some stories tend to lean slightly left through portraying President Trump negatively, such as this: Trump Unleashes Again on Special Counsel Who Didn’t Charge Him. When it comes to science, the VOA follows the consensus model and therefore is pro-science.

Voice of America has been called a propaganda arm of the US Government, and perhaps it was at the start. Today, it is a straightforward journalism outfit that might lean slightly left but is mostly least biased on a whole

Emphasis mine (also the italics just to make the headlines clear.) Now the emphasised bits is straight up bullshit. it’s government funded. It’s entire purpose- even today- is to disseminate pro-US propaganda everywhere outside the US. it’s forbiden from radio broadcasts that might reach US soil, and it’s only allowed to drop things on the interent because of a special provision specifically to counter messaging by terrorists.

Factual or not, it’s a propaganda outlet.

Al Jazeera:

In review, Al Jazeera reports news with minimally loaded wording in their headlines and articles such as this: UN approves team to monitor ceasefire in Yemen’s port city, and Erdogan delays Syria operation, welcomes US troop withdrawal. Both of these articles are properly sourced from credible news agencies. When reporting USA news, there is minimal bias in reporting such as this: Pentagon chief Mattis quits, cites policy differences with Trump. In general, straight news reporting has a minimal bias; however, as a state-funded news agency, Al Jazeera is typically not critical of Qatar.

Al Jazeera also has an opinion page that exhibits significant bias against Israel. In this article, the author uses highly negative emotional words as evidenced by this quote: “Europe is increasingly sharing Israel’s racist approach to border security and adopting its deadly technologies.” This article, however, is properly sourced from credible media outlets. Another article, “How many more ways can Israel sentence Palestinians to death?” also uses loaded language that is negative toward Israel. Further, the opinion page does not favor US President Donald Trump through this article: ‘Barbed wire-plus‘: Borders know no love. In general, opinion pieces are routinely biased against Israel and right-wing ideologies.

In 2017, Al Jazeera aired an investigative report of Britain’s Israel lobby. Following the airing, Ofcom (the UK government-approved regulatory and competition authority) received complaints from many pro-Israeli British activists, including one former Israeli embassy employee. They were accused of anti-Semitism, bias, unfair editing, and infringement of privacy, which was later cleared by Ofcom, who said the piece was not anti-semitic and was, in fact, investigative journalism. Later, a US version of the documentary called “Lobby” was not aired due to pressure from US Legislators pushing for Al Jazeera to register as a foreign entity and therefore labeling its journalists as ‘spies.’ Further, Saudi Arabia and three other Arab nations demanded Qatar to shut down Al-Jazeera. Al Jazeera rebuts the accusations here.

now, VOA’s review is easily seen as pure spin. MBFC goes out of their way to assauge any doubt what so ever that they’re factual and not biased. nop. no sir. Now, it would be fair to say that because they literally define bias using the US discourse as the meter stick… that there is no bias. Sort of chicken and the egg, right? any how… there’s no mention of Al Jazeera’s code of ethics… and the cited failed fact checks? date to 2018, one of which falls outside the 5 year window since it was last updated- the fact check was published august of 2018, when it was updated in October of 2023. Pedantic, I know, but the 5 year window is their rule.

all it takes is a five minute scroll through VOA to see that they have the same misleading bias towards the US/US government as Al Jazeera has towards Qatar.

VOA’s was last updated in… Nov 2022.

If you can define a completely objective methodology to judge political bias on whatever spectrum you choose, then please do. It’s inherently subjective. And there isn’t really a way around that.

you don’t need to define something that’s not subjective, exactly. But they need to explain what the methodology is. they’re looking for loaded words? then we need examples of what are loaded words that they’re looking for. that shouldn’t be too hard. it doesn’t even need to be exhaustive. just exhaustive enough.

Putting it on the individual articles makes it arbitrary. ask yourself… is “deadly” a loaded word? Or is it qualitative leading to understand that people actually died from the “deadly attack” rather than were just sent to the hospital in “an attack”. or that people died in a wildfire, hurricane or something else. Nobody can check every article to get a sense for their own criteria, and what they posted as a methodology is far from sufficient to the task of repeating their process. Ideally, I should be able to take their methodology article, follow it more or less step by step, and produce at least similar results. Can’t come even close.

finley ,

On each page, they describe, in detail, exactly how they come to their conclusions.

While you may disagree with what they have to say, to claim they’re hiding anything or that they aren’t being transparent or arbitrary is just untrue.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

here’s their definition of what’s a left or right bias

It’s pretty fucking arbitrary.

Additionally, their methodology is a bunch of gibberish and buzz words. that they explain their justification on each article is inadequate. For example, Al jazeera is dinged for using “negative emotion” words like “Deadly”.

Deadly might invoke a certain kind of emotion. but it’s also the simplest way to describe an attack in which some one dies. Literally every news service will use “deadly attack” if people are dying, regardless if it’s an attack by terrorists, or by cackling baboons. (or indeed not even an attack. for example ‘Deadly wildfire’ or ‘deadly hurricane’.) the application of using that as an example is extremely arbitrary, on a case by case basis.

finley ,

Now you’re just repeating yourself. That doesn’t make it any more true.

And as far as your claims of methodology being arbitrary, just because you use words in an arbitrary manner does not make their methodology arbitrary.

Like I said, just because you don’t agree with them doesn’t make them wrong or you right. Feel free to block them if you don’t like it. But other users here have clearly demonstrated how your argument does not hold water.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Okay.

Take their methodology.

Work through it.

You can’t because most of the “rigorous definitions “ aren’t shared.

You still haven’t explained what “factually consistent” means in a method that’s repeated and able to be applied regularly.

Their methodology as posted is far too vague to adequately consider their ability to provide consistent neutral ratings.

How are “loaded” words evaluated? Is there a table of words that are considered “loaded”? Personal feeling? We don’t know. We know what some of them are, since they’re mentioned on specific articles.

But that isn’t a consistent or “rigorously defined” criteria. So what is the “rigorously defined criteria”- and why is that not published?

Do you not see how that’s ripe for abuse?

Toes ,

I really like it, but I can see people being upset if it doesn’t align with their world view.

aleph , (edited )
@aleph@lemm.ee avatar

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 single 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

  1. is this information well-sourced?
  2. is there any obvious missing context?
  3. is this information up to date?
  4. what are the likely ideological biases of this writer or publication?
  5. 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.

Artisian ,
@Artisian@lemmy.world avatar

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.

aleph ,
@aleph@lemm.ee avatar

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.

Wrench ,

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.

RightHandOfIkaros ,

Lemmy users are super allergic to bots of any kind, so I would imagine most of them don’t look past the fact that its a bot and don’t care what it does or what it is about. Its a bot and bots are always bad in their eyes.

DrBob ,

I blocked that annoying piece of shit. It added nothing to discussion.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Comment sections are for comments.

This is the fediverse. I feel like these kinds of bots should be emitting something other than a comment, just a generic "metadata" might be good. Then work to get that adopted by the various platforms.

Because comment sections should be a place for people.

Aatube ,

to be fair, metadata would be hard to federate. here at mbin we have attached media with real alt text separate from the post body and lemmy still doesn't have that

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

FWIW, there's a reason I prefer mbin instances.

I feel like some amount of variation among fediverse software is exactly how we should try to suss all this out.

I just vote to keep comment sections for humans.

(I realize I can block and I do and I will, still want to shout my opinion into the storm for a second.)

BackOnMyBS ,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place avatar

I like that they get downvoted because it puts the comment at the bottom. Knowing it’s there, I can scroll down to check it if I want to see what it says. It’ snot like downvoting it hides it or affects some long-standing karma number.

Nougat ,

Because I don’t trust some internet rando’s bot to have my best interests in mind.

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