Hello World, As many of you have probably noticed, there is a growing problem on the internet when it comes to undisclosed bias in both amateur and professional reporting. While not every outlet can be like the C-SPAN, or Reuters, we also believe that it’s impossible to remove the human element from the news, especially when it concerns, well, humans.
To this end, we’ve created a media bias bot, which we hope will keep everyone informed about WHO, not just the WHAT of posted articles. This bot uses Media Bias/Fact Check to check context comments and adds a simple reply to show bias. We feel this is especially important with the US Election coming up. The bot will also provide links to Ground.News, as well, which we feel is a great source to determine the WHOLE coverage of a given article and/or topic.
As always feedback is welcome, as this is a active project which we really hope will benefit the community.
Thanks!
FHF / LemmyWorld Admin team 💖
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I think having this post isn’t a great idea because you are just assuming the websites bias are legit. At the very least there needs to be a lot of warnings in the bots post about the websites biases and the methodology they use so the reader can come to their own conclusion.
Just looking over the methodlogy it’s clear that it has it’s own biases:
American Bias
The website itself says it’s distinctions of left and right are US based which is very skewed from the rest of the world. There should be a disclaimer or it shouldn’t be used in any world news communities.
Centrist Bias
The website follows the idea of “enlightened centrism” since if it determines a website has a left/right lean (again arbitrary) it affects the factual ratings of the sources.
Examples of this are: FAIR only getting the 2nd highest rating despite never having failed a fact check.
Despite my personal opinions on the pointlessness of using a US based left/right bias criteria I’d feel better if it was at least kept it it’s own section but when you allow it to affect the factual rating of the source it’s just outright wrong. The factual accuracy of the website should be the sole thing that affects this rating.
Questionable Fact Checking
Even just checking some of their ratings raises doubts on the websites credibility.
The ADL is rated as high (2nd highest) and wasn’t found to fail any fact checks.
“Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism.”
Maybe Wikipedia editors are a good arbiter of truth and maybe they aren’t but as people can see there isn’t a consensus and so by choosing Media Bias/Fact Check you’re explicitly choosing to align your “truth” with this websites biases.
A standard of factuality needs to include a provision of avoiding emotionally-loaded, manipulative language. Otherwise you can pump unlimited amounts of propaganda with full factuality simply by “asking questions”.
I wont disagree that there should be a ranking for using loaded language but combining it with the factuality ranking twists what the ranking means since to the average person they’re going to read that as how accurate the facts are.
It should be its own separate rating from factuality. Again if we’re going to have to have a bot like this put clear disclaimers and ideally find a better one than this.
I disagree. I think emotional language is fundamentally the opposite of real objectivity, and cannot be honestly acknowledged as factual in any confirmable way.
It has no place in objective discussions, and employing it in any way, shape or form makes one deserve objectivity demerits.
edit: And objectivity and factuality are synonyms.
This is one of the reasons why the right is so successful. By equating emotion with lies, they erase the objections of the oppressed, and can continue with a veneer of objectivity as they advocate for genocide by seeming non-emotive and rational.
Fact-based reporting should be a measure of whether the statements and facts, express and implied, line up with the truth, and nothing more.
I love this, but I would like to state that Media Bias Fact Check seems to have a pro-Israel bias.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mondoweiss/
- Overall, we rate Mondoweiss as Left Biased and Questionable due to the blending of opinion with news, the promotion of pro-Palestinian and anti-zionist propaganda, occasional reliance on poor sources, and hate group designation by third-party pro-Israel advocates.
I feel like “blending of opinion with news” and “occasional reliance on poor sources” is all that really need be said.
We don’t allow Mondoweiss links either.
What a terrible idea.
MBFC is already incredibly biased.
It should be rejected not promoted.
Ok then tell me an alternative we can use in the scale for free.
None? Then pls dont just complain complain complain… And dont suggest improvements.
So much for “feedback is welcome” I guess
Figured it would take more than a day for that response to happen lol
You don’t.
There doesn’t exist a site to magically do what you want.
Likewise it’s not needed. It doesn’t add to the quality of discussion on the community. All it’s going to do is cause conflict as we now have to constantly point out to people how garbage the source is so that they don’t let it influence them.
Every newspaper has its bias. MBFC heavily favors western liberal perspectives. It is often fine on domestic policy but not reliable when it comes to foreign policy.
As this is worldnews and not Americanews, MBFC ratings are not reliable. Articles should be judged by the evidence they provide.
As the other poster says we don’t need to have something like this at all.
If you’re adamant about it then make a post where people can suggest which one we use and vote on it. We can also adjust the bots comment to clearly call out the chosen ones biases and methodology. As it is now it’s actively harmful as I mention in my other comment.
I find the only people that say MBFC is biased, are just saying they themselves have biased opinions so they don’t agree with the MBFC rating
I’m 1000% with you on this
Choosing one organization to be the arbiter of truth and bias gives them way too much power. I think fact checking should be the responsibility of whoever reads the article.
Yes, everyone should always do all their own work every time. Trust nothing! Formula of gravity? Newton and Einstein might be liars, and all the science textbooks could be complicit. Do your own research. Conduct your own experiments. Is the Earth flat? Grab a sailboat and find out!
/parody
You think this organization’s judgement is some objective algorithm and doesn’t contain its own subjective biases?
Nearly everything has various types of subjective bias. This is not a good excuse to believe nothing when bias can simply be examined and taken into account.
This is not a good excuse to believe nothing when bias can simply be examined and taken into account.
By your own reasoning, the examination would have its own bias. This isn’t a mathematical operation with a right answer.
Correct. Mathematical certainty is an impossible standard, and seeking it in news reporting is an unrealistic and silly objective that results in nothing useful.
Oh, lovely. Ministry of Truth Bots…
This is predicated on the false assumption that those organizations are neutral arbitrators of facts, but they aren’t.
They might have a better gauge on reality than OAN, or PatriotEageNews.ru, but that doesn’t mean platform moderators should present them as if they are the source of universal truth.
People can be critical of posts and comments and their sources, without the heavy hand of moderation from the privatized Ministry of Truth.
We don’t even have to look very far back to see how platform level “fact checking” systems are used and abused to silence and suppress information goes against mainstream narratives or is politically damaging.
MiniTrue would just remove wrongthink, so that’s hyperbolic.
I don’t love relying on this one source of fact/bias checking so much, but the general idea of not allowing unrestricted use of whatever source without warning is good.
Its better to have some “fact checking” than the “trust me bro” system.
We all know all “fact checking” systems have humans behind it, those humans can have biases, dislikes or do mistakes. But thats the reason why we should not have such system is not good. Its the viewers discretion to believe into the fact/bias checks of the given page. We are just giving our best effort to simplify the view.
Then i give you the recommendation to block the bot, if you dont like it.
No it’s not.
Bad fact checking is more harmful than not.
You’re putting your moderators hands on scale that far outweighs any community/user input into the validity of information discussed here.
On a completely unrelated note, did you know that Hamas went on a baby beheading spree on Oct. 7?
I know this because I read it on MSN.com, and your MediaBiasFactCheck said that MSN.com has a HIGH FACTUAL RATING
Anyone is free to rip apart my comment, and that source, but that job becomes more difficult when bots that have been anointed as bias and fact checkers, contradict them in any way, or are themselves biased.
That’s just introducing 2 more sources of bias
Both sides? Geeet outta here.
That’s literally what the other source being added called Groundnews attempts to do.
I understand your edgy take, but equivocating reliable and consistent mediators that accurately discern real news from propaganda with trash like Infowars as “more bias” is nonsense.
Yeah, I’m not saying all their work is worthless and I know they’re good enough for the most extreme sources of misinformation but to paint entire publications as not reliable based on the assessment of couple laypeople with an inherently narrow worldview (at least a very American-centric one) is the opposite of avoiding bias in my opinion.
Not entirely and unequivocally avoiding bias every time isn’t the “opposite of avoiding bias”, it’s an example of perfect being the enemy of good.
There may technically be inherent bias everywhere, but it’s at best useless and in practice harmful and inaccurate to lump MBFC in with grayzone and to equivocate in general.
Example from 2020:
“Biden is just another politician, like Trump”
Technically true that they are both politicians, but without recognizing the difference between Biden and trump, the states wouldn’t have student debt cancellations, no federal minority legal defenses, fifty plus liberally appointed judges, no reversal of the trans ban, no veteran health coverage for toxic exposure, no green new deal, no international climate accords, no healthcare expansion and so on.
or:
“who cares, it’s just another plant”, but arugula is a great salad green while a bite of foxglove can kill you.
It’s important to recognize the shades of grey and distinguish one from another.
How fucked is it that such a poorly written book has ruined the extremely useful phrase “shades of grey”?
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/radio-free-asia/
This what scores you high credibility: “a less direct propaganda approach” for state sponsored media that is not critical of its sponsor
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
And this is what scores you mixed credibility: “exhibits significant bias against Israel” for state sponsored media that is not critical of its sponsor (updated in Oct 2023 naturally)
Now every article published by Radio Free Asia is deemed more credible than those published by Al Jazeera despite the former literally being called a former propaganda arm of the state in their own assessment. Yes, good is not the enemy of perfect but this is clearly an ideological decision in both instances.
CNN also scores as Mostly Factual based on “due to two failed fact checks in the last five years” one being a single reporter’s statement and the other being about Greenland’s ice sheets. That doesn’t seem like a fair assessment to me
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left/cnn-bias/
So based on this I am supposed to conclude that Radio Free Asia is the most credible source out of the three at a glance.
Removed by mod
“good is not the enemy of perfect”
Incorrect quote.
Your problem is making “perfect the enemy of good.”
You are
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mistaking bias check for news reporting
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making perfection the enemy of the good
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arguing that mostly doesn’t mean mostly(spoiler, mostly does mean mostly)
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“this is clearly an ideological decision”: No, your examples provided are both conclusions based on consistent objective standards, the opposite of ideology.
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Yes, that everyone make a better picture. Instead of getting shouted at by one manipulative entity.
Have you looked into who runs Media Bias Fact Check? It’s pretty much as opaque as it gets for a website that claim to have an authoritative list of biases for hundreds of websites. Just because it’s a meta source does not make it any more credible than any other random website.
Have you ever investigated every news page for its bias? With no pay? I guess not. In the end there is a human doing that manually.
Because of that we added the ground.news search url, so that if you didnt believed it you can get other news pages thoughts on this article.
Have you looked into who runs Media Bias Fact Check? It’s pretty much as opaque as it getsI haven’t even tried to look for their about page or an FAQ.ftfy
Not quite as opaque as it gets, certainly.
Media Bias Fact Check, LLC is a Limited Liability Company owned solely by Dave Van Zandt. He also makes all final editing and publishing decisions.
Yeah, looks great to me.
That’s a fair criticism. It is not opacity, however. The full real name of your lead guy is transparency.
How do you verify who these people are? For all you know it’s just a bunch of fake names on a page.
That’s true of all names. At a certain point you can simply decide to trust nothing if that’s what you want. Plenty of people do, though personally I think that’s foolish due to the pointless nihilism it results in.
Uh, you know that the information is right there, right? It even says where their sources of funding are: ads that are based on your browser history (e.g., shit like AdSense), individual donations, and individual memberships.
I’m not talking about their source of funding but their qualifications in making claims with such broad implications. It looks like the pet project of some guy and couple faceless names who do not even claim any meaningful professional or academic experience.
Here’s an example from your link:
Jim resides in Shreveport, Louisiana with his two boys and is currently working toward pursuing a degree in Psychology/Addiction. Jim is a registered independent voter that tends to lean conservative on most issues.
MBFC is entirely the opinion of some guy and his team of mystery helpers.
It’s pure garbage and one look into it shows how pathetic the biases are.
could you have the bot automatically unvote its posts (make it 0) so it goes under new comments when sorted by votes?
the spoiler thing doesn’t work on eternity and it kinda hides everything under it being so long
I wish bot comments didn’t count toward the comment count, too. It’s annoying to see “1 comment” and then you look and it’s just this or the summary bot.
Hmm. It’s not a perfect way of measuring source bias, and bias is only correlated with truthfulness as I think they themselves admit, but I applaud the spirit.
I worry that people will put too much stock in it’s assessment, and as far as I can tell propaganda posting is already pretty controlled, on .world specifically. Did you code this yourselves? Is there some way one of us could request to push to the source, like if I figure out some way it could be better? In particular, it would be good to add notes on the specific sources commenters have described as having issues not covered by MBFC.
Currently the code is for now private. We will see if we can make it public in the future. The mods wont moderate posts because of the MBFC result.
I’m just gonna drop this here as an example:
- https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-jerusalem-report/
- https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-jerusalem-post/
The Jerusalem Report (Owned by Jerusalem Post) and the Jerusalem Post
This biased as shit publication is declared by MBFC as VEEEERY slightly center-right. They make almost no mention of the fact that they cherry pick aspects of the Israel war to highlight, provide only the most favorable context imaginable, yadda yadda. By no stretch of the imagination would these publications be considered unbiased as sources, yet according to MBFC they’re near perfect.
But seriously, this is pretty great. Thanks for putting that together.
Ground News Media Bias Fact Check Credibility: [High] (Click to view Full Report)
Ground News is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.
Bias: Least Biased
Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual
Country: Canada
Full Report: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ground-news/Check the bias and credibility of this article on Ground.News:
- https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fground.news%2F%29%2CMedia Bias/Fact Check Media Bias Fact Check Credibility: [High] (Click to view Full Report)
Media Bias/Fact Check is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.
Bias: Least Biased
Factual Reporting: Very High
Country: United States of America
Full Report: https://mediabiasfactcheck.comCheck the bias and credibility of this article on Ground.News:
- https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediabiasfactcheck.com%2F%29Media Bias/Fact Check Media Bias Fact Check Credibility: [High] (Click to view Full Report)
Media Bias/Fact Check is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.
Bias: Least Biased
Factual Reporting: Very High
Country: United States of America
Full Report: mediabiasfactcheck.comCheck the bias and credibility of this article on Ground.News:
- https://ground.news/find?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediabiasfactcheck.com%2F%29
Media Bias Fact Check is a fact-checking website that rates the bias and credibility of news sources. They are known for their comprehensive and detailed reports.
Thanks to Media Bias Fact Check for their access to the API.
Please consider supporting them by donating.Beep boop. This action was performed automatically. If you dont like me then please block me.💔
If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.Media Bias/Fact Check is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.
Good, I guess.
This is a god-tier shitpost.
Bot: Hmm this article reflects reality, thus it is biased to the left.
Using charged language like that constitutes disinformation and is reprehensible. Imagine if viewers started disregarding a source on account of your bot declaring it biased.
Shameful.
A whole lot of people here don’t read MBFC each day and it shows. They tend to take a single and testable claim and make a decision. It’s really easy to see if the claim is true or false if the claim is specific. They don’t have a habit of taking a big claim and ruling it false because of one small detail like Snopes does.
Good, one should always refer to the Ministry of Truth before deciding what is true or false for The Party.
For those reporting the bot:
We know! We worked with the Admins to enable it. :)
