this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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The tesseract Lemmy app, has a little overview from mediabiasfactcheck.com (MBFC). It seems like a clever way to foster a healthy community.

If you click on the ranking you get details.

ranking details for CNN

EDIT: Sorry to stir up an old hornet's nest.

EDIT2: Commenters have some valid criticisms of MBFC. Even if there are flaws, I would like to celebrate all attempts at elevating the conversations we are having.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

MBFC does the opposite of elevate conversations. It's quite frankly a poison pill for conversations. People will apply their prejudices and alter their interpretations based on the 'bias check', typically before or instead of any critical thinking ~~or ant article.~~ of any article.

The last time the MBFC bot was going the user pushing it was very clearly aware of this dynamic. They also knew it was lumping everything to website source, despite authors and opinion pieces, for maximum damage.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Imagine thinking CNN is center-left 😂

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

In the Overton Window that is US politics, it is. But that’s because the damn window has been dragged so far to the right that facts themselves are “Liberal Marxism” now (oxymoronic as that label is).

Edit: And MBFC perpetuates that rightward movement. I prefer Ad Fontes, although it does also label CNN as center-left.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago

MBFC is bad. It supports the American overton window, which is, you know, now openly fascist.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Wow, I decided I would give MBFC a shot. You are greeted with an ad-infested experience with a giant start bar reminiscent of a malware site. After building up enough courage to click it I discovered it not only wanted my email but also my credit card.

After having to fight to see the article I wanted rated I just don't have the fortitude to the fight this horrible experience to probably be told that the following article is left center or left leaning bias.

While I will admit this was a not Fox News praising the Trump Admin, it has an extremely neutral tone and does nothing to pushback against the obviously clownish message that the Trump team provides.

For this reason it, is to me at least, right leaning. I guess I will never know what MBFC would rate it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/15/federal-workers-aid-recipients-reel-trumps-team-says-so-what/

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (5 children)

reminiscent of a malware site

Well, that's because it is malware.

it, is to me at least, right leaning

It's not right leaning.

It's disinformation malware whose sole purpose is to move the Overton window as far right as possible.

It labels anything short of outright fascism as far left.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Firefox and ublock are your friend.

This site doesn't rate articles. It rates news sources. So you just have to look up what they rated the post as.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-post/

These ratings appear to b based on US sensibilities and not the rest of the world. So everything skews more to the left than it really is.

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

It probably rates the NSDAP as leftist since it has socialist in its name.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Probably considering it considers radio free Asia and voice of America news good sources.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

This site doesn't rate articles. It rates news sources.

That is an extremely important distinction! Thanks!

Edit: that wasn’t sarcasm. I honestly think it’s a valuable thing to know and remember.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Whatever the views are about MBFC, Tesseract integrated it better than LW's bot. If you don't like MBFC, it's just an option in your user settings to turn it off for Tesseract, whereas the bot caused a bunch of problems that weren't even related to concerns about accuracy and bias. Drive-by bots can be annoying, because it leads people to believe there's legit content where there isn't, and not every client respected LW's bot use of spoiler Markdown, so they ended up with a massive comment from it that dominated the screen.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

That seems like important nuance for sure.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (8 children)

is there an open source, decentralized alterntative to MBFC ?

I can't find one.

https://alternativeto.net/software/media-bias-fact-check/?license=opensource

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

These comments have made me very curious if that exists or how that might be designed.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If you want to potentially sidestep some of people's frustrations you might consider just using the credibility rating and focusing on whether a group provides factual reporting, rather than left or right of center

You can also create a user experience that more carefully manages expectations of the feature by having it be opt in, but presenting the option to users when it becomes available. That gives you the opportunity to give a short blurb acknowledging its imperfections and also highlighting its potential value

As someone fairly to the left wing myself, the fact that lemmy is so left wing is both a blessing and a curse. I don't see Nazis around, but being in an echo chamber isn't great for your ability to engage with perspectives other than your own, and makes you succeptible to narratives that reinforce your existing views regardless of whether they're accurate

I'd love this feature, in spite of its flaws, but it does definitely have them. Its based on the US overton window, which will frustrate folks from other parts of the world who may already feel lemmy sometimes forgets the world beyond the US exists. And the US overton window is changing as a product of the trump administration which may warp mbfc results, which could honestly be really dangerous.

Focussing on the factuality and credibility might help you sidestep those problems and make a feature people would find less frustrating, potentially even to the point that you could make it opt out.

Generally I appreciate efforts to build healthier, less echo chambery discourse, thanks for the work you're doing ❤️

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

Yeah I had a similar thought to your first paragraph. I mostly use MBFC for the "factual reporting" rating, because it seems easier to be objective about.

Just to clarify, I don't develop any fediverse software, I wouldn't want to take any credit from those amazing people.

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

i think photon does this too

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

I removed it because I don't want my app to necessarily depend or be associated with any specific centralized external source, like MBFC. By adding it to my app, I'm implicitly supporting its use, which wasn't necessarily my goal.

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