this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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News

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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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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Thank you for putting this into place!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

After seeing the comment on a few posts, the length is really bothering me. I don't want to block the bot since it's useful information. What about a single line of text with a link to "read more"?

Example with explanations:

404 Media is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check. (change Media Bias Fact Check to a link that goes to a post explaining what they do, the reason for the bot, and a link to their donation page)

Check the bias and credibility of this article on ground.news. (change "this article" to be a link instead of displaying link in plain text)

How it might look:

404 Media is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.

Check the bias and credibility of this article on ground.news.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

the length is really bothering me

I think this is my main challenge. It seems a little intrusive. Maybe I just read a bit from The Guardian and don't need to see the full monty again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Another idea. What about not posting the comment when the rating is "high credibility"?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because then you don't know if the bot is not working or is behind or if the post is actually credible. Better to have it on everything, though it definitely could put less info on high credibility posts if it can't be condensed across the board.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

That's a great point that I hadn't considered. Posting on every post also keeps it neutral instead of seeming to only target certain sources.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Very cool. I would also recommend Wikipedia's perennial news list as a source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It will be a little bit difficult to automate fetching that list.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

It's an interesting suggestion, however, I can see a few potential challenges:

  • The methodology is determined by Wikipedia editors' consensus alone. It's unclear what the ultimate basis for inclusion/exclusion may be, or whether there is a uniform standard applied.

  • The list is far less comprehensive than MBFC and other rating sites.

  • The scope/purpose of the Wikipedia list is very different from ours. Although we are both ultimately interested in factual, verifiable truth, news/current event aggregation is not the same purpose as encyclopedic archiving.

  • The list is sometimes too granular, and sometimes too broad to be useful for live content moderation. For example, some sources are categorized differently based on the type of content, and others are grouped together.

We would want to discuss and navigate these issues prior to incorporating this list into our communities.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Could just hardcode it and let the community voice their opinions on additions/changes

While I think the current method is a great idea, there's already people complaining

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

But then the issue arises what the people complain, the human bias.

Because the user x from instance b accuses the user y from instance a be a bigot because they added SomeRandomNewsPage as biased into there. And it repeats and repeats.

So we chose to use the available option to use MBFC and ground.news for 2 seperate options.

We all know the downside of a human maintained list / service (like MBFC) because you can not remove the human part.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The "footer" section is very long, and the spoiler tags don't seem to do anything on the Boost app. This makes the bot comment take up an entire screen on mobile.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah that is sadly bad implemented on the apps.

We put the "footer" that could go into a spoiler into a spoiler.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does this consider the bias of who runs MBFC?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its a human. Like every page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean the data is all there for you to look at and experts who have looked at it have agreed it is minimally biased. If you want something that is unbiased, then you're out of luck, every human has bias. If you believe all experts are biased, you're also right, but they're way less biased than someone being paid to be biased. So like everything, you can't wait forever for perfection, and anyone who tells you they are perfect and totally unbiased is likely the most biased, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

What data? They have a methodology but don't make any of what they actually complie for rates public.

It's a bias rating system based on 1 guys bias

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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%2C

Media 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.com

Check 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 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.com

Check 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.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Excellent work, admins!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This is awesome. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This is awesome!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Love this! There are a couple of extensions that do similar around the web but something similar for social circles was missing. Great solution.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Putting some site in charge of determining what news is valid just means that site controls the bias. I like the wide mix that we get now. Partisan commenters are more of a problem than bias in the sources. It's best when there are informed commenters who point out issues. Sometimes we have them, though not always.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

It triggers on posts, not on comments.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Awesome addition!