Soliciting Feedback for Improvements to the Media Bias Fact Checker Bot - Infosec.Pub
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Hi all! As many of you have noticed, many Lemmy.World communities introduced a bot: @MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world [https://lemmy.world/u/MediaBiasFactChecker]. This bot was introduced because modding can be pretty tough work at times and we are all just volunteers with regular lives. It has been helpful and we would like to keep it around in one form or another. The !news@lemmy.world [/c/news@lemmy.world] [https://lemmy.world/c/news] mods want to give the community a chance to voice their thoughts on some potential changes to the MBFC bot. We have heard concerns that tend to fall into a few buckets. The most common concern we’ve heard is that the bot’s comment is too long. To address this, we’ve implemented a spoiler tag so that users need to click to see more information. We’ve also cut wording about donations that people argued made the bot feel like an ad. Another common concern people have is with MBFC’s definition of “left” and “right,” which tend to be influenced by the American Overton window. Similarly, some have expressed that they feel MBFC’s process of rating reliability and credibility is opaque and/or subjective. To address this, we have discussed creating our own open source system of scoring news sources. We would essentially start with third-party ratings, including MBFC, and create an aggregate rating. We could also open a path for users to vote, so that any rating would reflect our instance’s opinions of a source. We would love to hear your thoughts on this, as well as suggestions for sources that rate news outlets’ bias, reliability, and/or credibility. Feel free to use this thread to share other constructive criticism about the bot too.
    • demesisx@infosec.pubOPEnglish
      1117·
      3 months ago

      I think I was being generous. That bot makes China’s great firewall seem tame. Those people (lemmy world mods and their uncritical users) are lemmings, slowly signing away more of their liberties to a bot because they’re either too lazy, smug, or both. The ones that support it will fight you about it. They think it somehow helps them to be in an echo chamber, exposed to only their tribe. They are literally PROGRAMMED to call you a bot if you even remotely conflict with their view. The people on hexbear are equally into the echo chamber thing. They banned me because I wasn’t leftist enough for them. 😂

      Tribalism is so dangerous and stupid. It’s what got me to finally quit Facebook back in 2016 and now I have to see it here. Ever since governments have figured out how to achieve this kind of willing dupe environment, it keeps popping up everywhere free speech might find a way to peek through the cracks.

      Anyway, nice chat. I really should get back to being a “Russian bot”.

  • prototype_g2@lemmy.ml
    41·
    1 month ago

    So… They are outsourcing fact-checking to a BOT controlled by…?

    Whoever controls the BOT can control what is considered the truth. If the people in control of the BOT have any biases, those biases will be programmed into the BOT.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
      68·
      3 months ago

      Hi Blaze,nothing has changed with the bot. I have sent very extensive PM’s to JordanLund about MBFC far before they made it a bot, as it is also a sidebar requirement for sources.

      As for your other question; I got banned from LemmyWorld /Politics and /WorldNews because their mods want to censor the Democrats complicity in the Genocide in Gaza. They have also openly stated they introduced the mbfc bot because the elections are coming up. As mbfc almost perfectly lines up with the liberal-Zionist agenda (see Democrat) It’s not hard to guess the reason for mbfc.

      ProgressivePolitics is ran by TokenBoomer who has always aligned more with reality on the Democrats Genocide complicity. However some LemmyWorld admins most certainly share the views on /Politics and /WorldNews so it’s very possible the LW admins will ban or hijack ProgressivePolitics.

      Many mods also tend to get upset because there’s a such a barrage of sludge by the Blue MAGA squad stalking my profile that they don’t want to deal with it.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
          58·
          3 months ago

          My primary objective is raising awareness for the Genocide. I always try to balance between reaching the biggest audience and communities which most need to be informed.

          For example the best place to reach conservatives on Reddit would be r/Conservatiive, however posting anything anti-Trump there would instantly get you banned. Same with Lemmy.World being the best place to change peoples mind. If there’s not a bunch of mad liberals in the comment section I’m just preaching to the choir. The fact that I was able to post there for so long was pretty astounding to begin with.

          This however turned out to also be a downside because many people coalesced around LW and needed no alternative. I never expected the Genocide to go on for this long so I never tried to establish in a smaller community from scratch, as growing a smaller community would take far longer.

          I occasionally posted to Lemmy.Zip before, they are great their reach is not nearly the same. I try spreading my posts around a bit more now because there’s always a triggered mod somewhere. Thanks for reminding me of .Zip though! I kind of forgot about them again.

          • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            41·
            3 months ago

            This however turned out to also be a downside because many people coalesced around LW and needed no alternative.

            Indeed

            I occasionally posted to Lemmy.Zip before, they are great their reach is not nearly the same.

            In an ideal world, people upset with the MBFC bot would turn to the lemmy.zip community, but I’m not seeing this happening any time soon

  • 🇦🇺𝕄𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕔𝕕𝕚𝕝𝕖@lemm.eeEnglish
    22·
    1 month ago

    I dont why people have such a hate boner for bots just turn them off in ur settings. First they killed the summary bot then they killed the bias bot just ignore it. Give the people the freedom to choose if they want to see it or not. Its kinda authoritarian to say u dont have the choice to see it if u want we know whats best for you.