this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024

348 points (89.0% liked)

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348

Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker bot? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

394 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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...

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

the spoiler tags it uses are fucked up on my client and i can't click any of its links or make any use of it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I get that. I hope your client fixed them soon, lol

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Lemmy users are super allergic to bots of any kind, so I would imagine most of them don't look past the fact that its a bot and don't care what it does or what it is about. Its a bot and bots are always bad in their eyes.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (17 children)

The alternative is to use your own brain.

The fact that people are so often so ignorant and/or ideologically blinkered that they can't see plain bias when it's staring them in the face is the problem, and relying on a bot to tell you what to believe does not in any way, shape or form help to solve that problem. If anything, it makes it even worse.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (11 children)

Bias can be subtle and take work to suss out, especially if you're not familiar with the source.

After getting a credibility read of mediabiasfactcheck itself (which I've done only superficially for myself), it seems to be a potentially useful shortcut. And easy to block if it gets annoying.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (6 children)

In addition to everything else that has been said, the mod that pushed this through also is rude and dismissive of criticism.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (12 children)

I hate bots

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It promotes the existing power structure, which some people think is no bueno.

For example, if you post this:

https://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/01/30/ret.axis.facts/

the bot will say it is a highly accurate source with highly factual reporting so people will tend to believe with certainty that the U.S. should invade Iraq.