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…

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    11·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • otp@sh.itjust.worksOP
      11·
      3 months ago

      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.

      How does one go about doing that for a brand new source each time they encounter one?

      With the bot, the critical thinking needs to be done far fewer times. It’s the same bot with the same source. Understand the source’s bias and credibility, and then you’ll have an idea of how to interpret its results. Not so without the bot – whatever process needs to be done for each new source every time a new source is encountered.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        11·
        3 months ago

        That’s not how that works. You’re assuming the people behind MBFC are operating on an objective scale, even if you don’t like it. But they clearly are not. This isn’t a case of everything being shifted to the right. They don’t abide by their own rubric. So there’s nothing left but whatever they subjectively rate.

        A single arbiter of truth and fact is only good as long as it’s actually an objective source. Which has been thoroughly disproven.

        If you cannot understand why it’s dangerous to rely on an unreliable arbitrator of fact and bias then I can’t help you.

        • otp@sh.itjust.worksOP
          11·
          3 months ago

          You’re assuming the people behind MBFC are operating on an objective scale

          No, I’m not. I’m saying “If we know that they’re flawed, we can take their flaws into consideration. But if we have to look at each source independently, we need to do a new investigation for each new source”.