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…
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.
Yeah, the Overton window has been pushed so far right that neutral sources with no added opinion are now considered center-left.
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.
Reality has a left wing bias.
It also seems to ignore most of the posts that it could actually be helpful on. Like no-name blogs and Fox News.
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.
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 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.
Which is weird because with 3 failed results in 2020 and 1 in 2022 Guardian got a mixed rating. While the New York Times gets a high rating with 3 failed fact checks.
I can smell the objectivity from here.
And yeah it’s rather they use whatever critical thinking they’re going to use on the source itself rather than have a bot claiming to do it for them. That wouldn’t be an issue though if it was actually objective. But it’s not. It’s a lie. So now you’re asking people to use critical thinking skills twice instead of once, and they have to get over the hurdle of realizing the officially sponsored MBFC bot is itself misinformation.