6mo ago

Media Bias Fact Check - Automation

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 add 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 💖

49 comments

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.

Is it your position that criticism of Israel should be censored? Is being pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, or anti-genocide antisemitic?
This is the position of Media Bias/Fact Check. By endorsing their platform, you are also endorsing their radically biased re-definition of antisemitism that is being used to slander holocaust survivors and progressive Jewish voices along with truth speakers of all races and creeds.
Groups like MBFC use their position as gatekeepers of the political spectrum to disguise radical ideas as centrist positions, and it's ironic that you're using such a biased propaganda platform to tell your readers what is credible.
Bias is not the same thing as propaganda, propaganda is not the same thing as misinformation. Articles should be evaluated on how factual they are, and there are plenty of platforms that are doing the hard work of verifying information without putting their political ideology above their credibility. This bot is a mistake.
- Unfortunately Rooki is not accepting criticism of this decision.
- Lmao no comment from the .world Admin on this post.
  
  Oh they did. Just to troll the user's
- You are making a lot of claims, but without any examples or anything to back those claims I am unconvinced.
  
  I'm in the same boat here, commenter brings pretty bold claims with zero proof to back it up, especially concidering I looked it up, and so far propagandic sources that I know of all show low or medium credibility.
  in fact the first 5 Isreal based sources I looked up all show little credibility as well. I am curious where the proof is
- you get the Lemmy.world Silver for making the longest "feedback" as many would say. About how bad MBFC is.
  But still no alternative or improvement ideas. So i guess we will have to stick to MBFC if there is no one with any ideas.
  
  Why exactly do you have to stick with it? I've not seen that explained.

Your bot sucks and you should feel bad. Where's the source?
- Then give improvement ideas? Deleting the bot is not an option sry.
  
  Why not?

It was so annoying I blocked it.
First it takes way to much space, it should be a 1 liner for stating the bias, and then be able to folds out to show the rest.
Second the data is not very useful, for instance it doesn't say if a source i left or right leaning, although I suppose that trustworthy means left, as we all know facts have a liberal bias. It also doesn't show the owner of the media, which has become one of the most significant factors to judge media from.
Also I don't trust the bot to give accurate info, as the source it uses may itself be politicized.

Why are you using a bot that rates media unreliable because they are anti-Zionist using literal pro-israel lobby groups as their source?
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.
- That's the sanitized version. They re-worded it to hide their endorsement of the redefinition of antisemitism.
  The recent version:
  
  This previous version was available while the IDF was engaged in the genocide of Palestinians:
  
  I keep saying "them/they/their" but it's not really a group. It's mostly one guy, Dave M. Van Zandt, who has no academic media literacy qualifications. He's not a social scientist. He should not be running a site that is being used to censor news feeds.
  
  The irony is that he admits that his system for judging 'bias' is pseudoscience, but at the same time claims that MBFC's purpose is to debunk pseudoscience. He appears to have no idea what science is. His methods are not public, repeatable, or by his own admission falsifiable.
  News from the left-leaning journalists should not be categorized with the same qualifiers as AI-generated Russian fake news sites. LGBT advocacy and lobbying organizations that have no economic intersectionality are not "Left" -- LGBT sexual identities are not inherently political. CNN is a corporate news network, not a socialist organization. It's pretty obvious the deeply flawed simplification of the political spectrum to a continuum is based on an American moderate Republican capitalist's narrow understanding of politics, and Van Zandt admits as much:
  
  He is actively harming media diversity and LW should be ashamed for taking this charlatan seriously.
  
  Great summary thanks for this
- Don't know a lot about Mondoweiss, but I found this article that cites Weiss saying some pretty out there stuff:
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/04/mondoweiss-is-a-hate-site/
  I don't know that I like it if MBFC is just taking pro-Israel advocate at their word, but another commentator said they rated other pro-Israel sources as questionable as well. Example:
  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/israel-war-room-bias/
  
  TheGrayZone wrote a great article about how Wapo operates for israel as they wrote a smear piece filled to the brim with lies about them recently.
  
  The article you linked basically describes AIPAC and the israel lobby. The Wapo author just tries to conflate Zionism with Judiasm and quotes a paragraph out of context. The paragraph isn't worded great but in context of the article it's clearly not what the Wapo author tries to portray.

Thanks. On voyager it’s a little clumsy. The header, body, and footer takes up a lot of space. Trying to close/collapse the comment just expands the comment more.
There’s no reason this needs to be large or in your face. It should be small, like a reference. I’d try to reduce word count, lines, and just overall how much space it uses.
- We reduced it a bit. It will take affect after next deployment ( tomorrow )

This is fantastic news! I've been using Ground News for a while now, and it's fantastic for spotting propaganda/bias/etc. Very well done!
- Ground news is sooo good

This is fantastic!!! Thank you so much for this.

Thanks for this Rooki!

::: spoiler 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
:::
::: spoiler 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
:::
::: spoiler 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.
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.
- That somehow feels like nepotism... or just invokes "But who fact checks the fact checker" vibes in me. ;P
  Glad to have you on board!

This bot uses MBFC to check context comments and adds a simple reply to show bias.
What does the bot check? It checks the comments to determine bias? What "context?"
How does the autoreply show bias?
E: Okay I went and looked at one of the autoreplies and I get what it does and I'm excited about it. That sentence could use a little work. Rest of your post is great. You could have done better! I await your revisions.
- Yeah i just reread that and yes it doesnt make fully sense. I edited it bo a little bit clearer

For those reporting the bot:
We know! We worked with the Admins to enable it. :)
- I see why people would seek an easy solution like the bot, but it's not a good idea.
  Aside from the bot, thanks for all the work you do and happy cake day :)

Excellent idea.
I'd also consider adding Ad Fontes bias checks for an additional perspective done with a different methodology, as well as just more coverage, as MB/FC often doesn't have an entry for more niche sources. Ad Fontes scales itself more to the American political center, as well, so may be perceived as less inherently biased by certain consumers who may be more inclined to outright reject a single fact checking source for political reasons.
- The problem I see with Ad Fontes, is that they're very good with the bias scale but really don't address credibility.
  I have absolutely no problem with biased sources so long as what they are saying is credible. The Truth Hurts and all of that.
  MB/FC doesn't limit itself to just bias.
- It would be feasable to get it for an alternative to MBFC, but so far i can find out, it isnt free.
  If there is a public API that you found please let me know we will investigate on integrating it.
  
  If all your endpoint sucks then so do your bot.
  
  I had a bot on reddit a long time ago that would do the same with adfontes. I can’t remember how it worked but I swear I got a free.csv of the adfontes data somewhere. Sorry to not be more help.

49 comments

Ground News is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.

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

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

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