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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…

Waraugh ,

I downvote every bot post I come across

Mr_Dr_Oink ,

But for what reason?

Hupf ,
@Hupf@feddit.org avatar

You can just opt to not see bot accounts in your profile?

otp OP ,

Why not just block every bot you come across?

Furbag ,

I’m inherently distrustful of anything that tries to tell me if a source is biased or not. Who verifies that the bot isn’t also programmed to have an agenda?

I think I’ll just stick to plain old critical thinking skills and evaluate things for myself.

otp OP ,

Who verifies that the bot isn’t also programmed to have an agenda?

The bot itself doesn’t assign any political leanings or credibility scores though. The bot just pulls information from a website, and you can read about their methodology there.

Treczoks ,

Actually, downvotig it has interesting benefits. If I want to know the bots’ evaluation, I can scroll to the end to find it.

otp OP ,

That’s true! Though you’ll also see the shit comments there, lol

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

MBFC is ran by a Zionist and rates obvious israeli lobbies such as the ADL as highly credible. Even when MBFC admits they are israeli lobby groups in their description.

MBFC serves no other purpose than to push liberal Zionist narratives which coincidentally happens to be exactly the positions of the Democrats

For more info see lemmy.world/post/18245990

DudeImMacGyver ,
@DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works avatar

exactly the positions of the Democrats

Kinda weird that you’re referring to democrats as a whole as Zionists when there are literally pro-Palestinian democrats in congress, never mind regular people who vote democrat. Their party as a whole isn’t unified on the matter but to equate democrats with zionism isn’t exactly accurate either.

MapleEngineer ,
@MapleEngineer@lemmy.world avatar

Extremists never let reality get in the way of their absolutist slurs.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Imagine calling people advocating against literal Genocode extremists.

MapleEngineer ,
@MapleEngineer@lemmy.world avatar

Where did I say that?

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Where did I say you said that?

some_guy ,

The democratic party, as a whole, is pro-business, pro-Israel, and center-right. One only need listen to their podcasts to confirm this.

I listen to Al Franken’s podcast on occasion because I used to like his show before I went Left. I check in once in a while and he says things openly that they don’t say officially, like how funding Ukraine is meant to bleed Russia’s economy (I’m no simp for Russia; I just want Ukraine not to be invaded rather than wanting a proxy-war). I listened to a handful of PodSave back in the day. I couldn’t get into them even before I went hard Left. These are the two that are familiar to me.

I don’t know about the bot or the politics of the person behind it. But there are very much positions of “the Dems.” I’m voting for Harris because fuck fascism, but it’s amazing to me that Dems in the USA are closer to the right wing in Europe than to the Left in Europe. People should notice. Sure, our Repubs are batshit crazy to the right in a way that only the most extreme appear to be in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok that we have very little actual Left in the USA.

Apologies for errors and steam of consciousness. It’s early and I don’t have time to proofread before work.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

You do know that Democrats receive even more money from israeli lobbies than Republicans right?

AIPAC Demonstrates Its Clout With Defeat of a Second ‘Squad’ Member

And that Joe Biden literally calls himself a Zionist

DudeImMacGyver ,
@DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works avatar

I refer you to my previous statement friend.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

I refer you to my previous statement.

AbsoluteChicagoDog ,

As opposed to the anti-Zionist Republicans? The fuck are you talking about?

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

As opposed to the anti Zionist third parties such as Cornel West and Jill Stein.

Do you believe Republicans are liberal?

NegativeLookBehind ,
@NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world avatar

It’s really fucking annoying. I blocked it so I don’t have to see it anymore.

MapleEngineer ,
@MapleEngineer@lemmy.world avatar

Extremists hate being fact checked. The reality is that you can fact check the fact checking but that can also be fact checked.

Routhinator ,
@Routhinator@startrek.website avatar

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.

BlorpTheHagraven ,

Yeah, or when it says The New York Times is leftist.

Helpful for keeping me honest about checking sources, not always very honest itself.

davidagain , (edited )

It’s roughly correct about the political leanings of UK newspapers as far as I’ve seen, but it’s way off on the accuracy and factual reporting measures. It seems to give loony papers a pass and the responsible ones a drubbing. It seems to have an American view of politics where liberal and left are conflated and also daring to report what the views of poor people are gets your reliability ratings plummeting.

OhNoMoreLemmy , (edited )

Yeah anything responsible that reports and corrects mistakes made in past reporting gets a low score for factual accuracy, when these should be getting the highest scores.

It’s completely backwards.

airportline ,
@airportline@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s really annoying and I don’t trust it

otp OP ,

You could block it, no?

airportline ,
@airportline@lemmy.ml avatar

I think it belongs at the very bottom of the page.

bloodfart ,

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”.

bartolomeo ,
@bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

It promotes the existing power structure, which some people think is no bueno.

For example, if you post this:

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.

mholiv ,

If you actually read the article it seems pretty factual. It lists Bush’s claims and then has a response. Seems to merit the rating.

The reporting of the Bush administration’s position and the response seems fair.


<span style="color:#323232;">**IRAQ:**
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">STATUS: Since 1998, the Iraqi government has barred U.N. weapons inspectors from examining sites where some suspect that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons are made and stored. The United Nations has said it will lift sanctions against the Middle Eastern country -- in place since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War in 1991 -- only if inspectors can verify that Iraq has dismantled all its weapons of mass destruction. In an editorial this month in a state-run newspaper, Iraq again denied it has or is developing such weapons.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">RESPONSE TO BUSH'S SPEECH: "This statement of President Bush is stupid and a statement that does not befit the leader of the biggest state in the world," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Wednesday.
</span>
bartolomeo ,
@bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

Narratives are created by more than just that, including what is reported on, how frequently it is reported, and what is not reported on. See Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” to learn more.

Sibbo ,

It thinks that the guardian would have only medium credibility

DrFuggles ,

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.

otp OP ,

But who does these ratings?

That information is available on the website, no? Along with their methodology

DrFuggles ,

yes, I know. I meant it more along the lines of whoever comes up with a method for standardizing bias in media puts their own bias in the methodology.

For example, I feel it is a political statement in itself to have a “bias spectrum” from left to unbiased to right. This implies that both left an right are “biases”, while only the center is truly neutral and therefore an arbiter of truth and facts. Enlightened centrism, anyone?

Also, I disagree with parts of their methodology. The headline “Habitual liar and convicted felon to seek US presidency again” would probably be classified as loaded language, whereas “Donald Trump wants to become president again” would be considered more neutral.

I would argue that the former example is, in fact, more truthful than the latter because it doesn’t omit major reasons why this is newsworthy. But since the mbfc is founded on the illusion idea that there is such a thing as truly neutral common ground, it conflates perspective and bias.

otp OP ,

Judging by headlines alone, I’d agree about your assessment of bias.

“World-renowned businessman Donald Trump runs for president” would be biased in favour of Trump (so, Right-biased).

Bias isn’t inherently a bad thing if it’s telling the truth. Yeah, there’s propaganda, but an astute reader can figure it out. Or if you don’t want to read media with a certain bias, then you can skip those publications.

Bias also includes what stories to publish. Right-leaning (and beyond) media probably doesn’t publish a whole lot about the bad things and mistakes Trump did. Yet with completely neutral-sounding headlines, they could still be a biased publication based on the things they choose to publish (or not) and highlight (or not).

Melody ,

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.

Adanisi ,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

For one, it bases it’s bias assessments on American politics. The UK is less right-wing than the US but when this bot comes along it calls a source which we might call centrist, “left”.

In a way, it’s like an attempt to shift the overton window for other countries closer to the US, and that’s not a good thing.

Of course, don’t expect this to be addressed by @Rooki.

otp OP ,

It’s not the bot that makes the judgement

Adanisi ,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

No it’s the person who owns the source.

A pro-Israel American iirc.

Blaze ,

A pro-Israel American iirc.

Any comment where they stated so? Seems wild based on the current context

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