Hi all!
As many of you have noticed, many Lemmy.World communities introduced a bot: @[email protected]. 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 [email protected] 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.
Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Fact-checking is an essential tool in fighting the waves of fake news polluting the public discourse. But if that fact-checking is partisan, then it only acerbates the problem of people divided on the basics of a shared reality.
This is why a consortium of fact-checking institutions have joined together to form the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and laid out a code of principles. You can find a list of signatories as well as vetted organizations on their website.
MBFC is not a signatory to the IFCN code of principles. As a partisan organization, it violates the standards that journalists have recognized as essential to restoring trust in the veracity of the news. I’ve spoken with @[email protected] about this issue, and his response has been that he will continue to use his tool despite its flaws until something better materializes because the API is free and easy to use. This is like searching for a lost wallet far from where you lost it because the light from the nearby street lamp is better. He is motivated to disregard the harm he is doing to [email protected], because he doesn’t want to pay for the work of actual fact-checkers, and has little regard for the many voices who have spoken out against it in his community.
By giving MBFC another platform to increase its exposure, you are repeating his mistake. Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all. Just like how the proliferation of fake news undermines the authority of journalism, the growing popularity of a fact-checking site by a political hack like Dave M. Van Zandt undermines the authority of non-partisan fact-checking institutions in the public consciousness.
Thank you for discovering me IFCN, i see there maldita.es from spain which are fact checking kings.
Thanks, this was a very informative comment. I assume none of the IFCN signatories have a free API? Just asking since you seem pretty well versed on this
I appreciate you reading and responding to my concern instead of censoring me like your fellow mod in !news and !world:
- Censored by !news as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !news as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !world as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !news as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !world as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !news as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !world as ‘Stop Spamming’
- Censored by !news as ‘Stop Spamming’
More than half of these occurred in a community you moderate. Do you approve of this use of the term ‘spamming’ to silence criticism?
Exposing a free API for anyone to use is not typical trade practice for respectable fact-checking operations. You may be able to get free access as a non-profit organization, and that may be worth persuing. On the other hand, there’s a fundamental problem in the disconnect between the goals of real fact-checking websites and the kind of bot you are trying to create.
Thanks, that tip about being a non-profit is a good suggestion. Do you have any specific fact checkers in mind?
In terms of the comments, they look like they are off-topic. There are support communities within Lemmy.world that would be more appropriate places to post concerns. Or even other communities focused on things like Lemmy drama and similar topics like that. But copy/pasting the same comment on multiple threads? Doesn’t matter what you’re saying, we’ll delete it as spam. Done it many times myself, even if I didn’t delete your comments in particular.
This is not a case of copy/pasting the same comment in multiple threads. Please look closer at the comments and the reports. One comment is repeated once, but that is due to it being topical to MBFC’s take on the BBC, and both articles were from the BBC.
Also, I’m alarmed you consider contextualization of MBFC in comments that reply to the Bot as ‘off-topic.’ The Bot created the topic of MBFC’s credibility by linking to it as an authoritative source. If a comment about the credibility of the BBC in reply to an article published by the BBC is on-topic, then a comment about the credibility of MBFC as a reply to a review published by MBFC is also on-topic.
I love how they call your replies to bot spam but the bot isn’t.
Not just any bot spam - the most downvoted spam in Lemmy history. It is now more unpopular than the most popular Lemmy account is popular.
From their methodology:
Our methodology incorporates findings from credible fact-checkers who are affiliated with the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Only fact checks from the last five years are considered, and any corrected fact checks do not negatively impact the source’s rating.
Just like every good lie has a little bit of truth in it, MBFC wouldn’t be able to spin its bullshit as well without usurping the credibility of real fact-checking organizations.
What an odd form for a mea culpa to take!
You seemed to care passionately about IFCN fact-checkers doing the fact-checking. It turns out that MBFC agrees with you. Your (feigned) concern has been completely addressed in just the way you’d hoped. A person making that argument in good faith might say, “Oh! Maybe this is a better resource than I thought it was,” or maybe,“I should probably apologize to Rooki for harassing them about something I appear to have just made up.” Instead you just spin it into some other nebulous bullshit and move the goal posts. If you’re not careful, people might begin to suspect that you’re starting with the conclusion and working backwards.
Sorry, no mea culpa. Let me elaborate. Van Zandt claims to value IFCN fact-checkers in his ratings, then he uses that laundered credibility to gatekeep minority and politically inconvenient voices. Here’s a recent example brought to my attention.
It should be noted that despite no non-partisan fact checkers are listed on MBFC’s site as raising concerns about the The Cradle’s credibility, Van Zandt has arbitrarily placed it in the “Factual Reporting: Mixed” and “Credibility: Medium” categories. The concerns he posits about The Cradle’s 'lack of transparency, poor sourcing," and one-sidedness clearly apply to the weird right-wing guy who makes these opaque decisions about journalistic value.
If IFCN fact-checkers have issues with sources he’d like to denigrate, he’s happy to list them even if they’ve since been resolved. But they don’t make up the central criteria for his ‘methodology’ as he’d like you to believe. Meanwhile he’s free to make unreferenced claims about the credibility of others that uncareful readers take completely at face value.
All the concerns I have about The Cradle’s credibility have been developed in spite of MBFC, which is the opposite of what you want if your goal is accountability and media literacy. And thanks to their reliance on this charlatan, LW!news have recently punted what I think is a valuable report.
Sorry, no mea culpa.
If you think being an unrepentant liar is good for your cred, fill your boots, I guess.
It should be noted that despite no non-partisan fact checkers are listed on MBFC’s site as raising concerns about the The Cradle’s credibility, Van Zandt has arbitrarily placed it in the “Factual Reporting: Mixed” and “Credibility: Medium” categories. The concerns he posits about The Cradle’s 'lack of transparency, poor sourcing," and one-sidedness clearly apply to the weird right-wing guy who makes these opaque decisions about journalistic value.
‘I don’t understand how it works so it’s stupid!’
- The Cradle is a rag that’s been banned by Wikipedia for publishing conspiracy theories and for (gasp!) poor sourcing.
- If you had read their methodology, you’d know that MBFC wasn’t being arbitrary as lack of transparency and the impact are clearly defined:
A source is considered to lack transparency if it fails to provide an ‘About’ page or a clear description of its mission. Transparency is further compromised if the ownership of the source is not openly disclosed, including the identification of the parent company and key individuals involved. Additionally, the absence of information about major donors, funding sources, or general revenue generation methods contributes to this lack of transparency. It is essential for the source to at least disclose the country, state, or city of operation and the name of the person responsible (such as the editor). While providing a physical address is not mandatory, meeting some of these transparency criteria is important. Inadequate transparency typically results in the source’s factual reporting rating being reduced by one or two levels, depending on the extent of the shortfall.
Credibility Levels:
- High Credibility: A score of 6 or above.
- Medium Credibility: A score between 3-5 points. Sources lacking an ‘About’ page or ownership information are automatically rated as Medium Credibility.
- Low Credibility: A score of 0-2 points. Sources rated as Questionable, Conspiracy, or Pseudoscience are automatically classified as Low Credibility.
This is from the report:
The Cradle lacks transparency as they do not disclose ownership. The domain is registered in the United States.
Who could’ve seen that rating coming?
Methodical is the opposite of arbitrary. The reason it seems arbitrary to you is that you don’t understand it. As a bare minimum to be critical of MBFC you should understand how it works, understand their methodology, and probably have read their Wikipedia page. Bonus points for seeing what high quality research says about them (spoiler alert: it says you’re wrong). You’re demanding that people take very seriously your misinterpretations and assumptions about something you don’t understand. How is that a reasonable request?
The tone of this content is super patronizing and toxic
To clarify what MBFC considers “MIXED” factual reporting (the same rating they give known disinformation factory Breitbart):
Further, while The Guardian has failed several fact checks, they also produce an incredible amount of content; therefore, most stories are accurate, but the reader must beware, and hence why we assign them a Mixed rating for factual reporting.
They list like five fact checks, while The Guardian puts out basically quintuple that every day. And moreover, this is the sort of asinine nitpick that they classify as a “fact check”.
“Private renting is making people ill.” “Private renting is making people ill, but maybe this happens with other housing situations too, we don’t know, so we rate this as false.”
MBFC’s ratings for “factual reporting” are a joke.
This is my problem with MBFC, and which seems to consistently get ignored by the admins and mods pushing for the bot.
MBFC seems to rate every even slightly “left wing” news source as “mixed factual reporting” for absolutely any excuse whatsoever. The fact that they deem The Guardian as reliable as Breitbart should really tell you something.
Remove it.
No need for a bot. Obvious misinformation should be removed by the mods. Bias is too subjective to be adjudicated by the mods. Just drop it already. It’s consistently downvoted into oblivion for a reason. The feedback has been petty damn obvious. This whole thread is just because the mods are so sure they’re right that they can’t listen to the feedback they already got. Just kill the bot.
This thread is a mess.
users: “bot is awful”
mod: “ok so it’s not terrible so that’s good”
Yeah lol, i cant help but laugh every time i see the mods replies in this thread. i dont understand shit about his train of thought, i dont know if he is denyal or was surprised most people didnt end up aligning with his bias and is in damage control replying nonsense.
The thing I don’t get is why are they so insistent on this change that is so overwhelmingly not wanted?
Who is pushing this and why are so many mods backing it?
$$$$
I apologize if this thread was misunderstood. Perhaps I was not clear that this was meant for improvements, it is not a vote on removal. Should that vote ever happen, the post would be clear about that.
All of my questions were only seeking to gain more information about people’s feelings. I apologize if it came off as a promise to enact anything in particular or an endorsement of any particular stance on the bot.
Yes, you’ve been very clear from the start that you do not want to remove the bot. However, the feedback you’ve consistently received is that it provides no benefit, is misleading, reductive, and the best improvement you could make would be to remove it. You don’t seem willing or able to respond to that.
Correct, I am unable to supersede admin decisions as a mod. I am here collecting feedback on improvements. Again, I am looking for feedback on improvements, as the decision to remove the bot is not in my control.
Then you’re just wasting both your time and ours.
https://lemmy.world/post/19173515?scrollToComments=true
Please show more kindness in the future.
Ok. Sorry you’ve never been on a functional team before.
It clearly seems as though you aren’t either.
The problem is with MBFC, and you have no control over them. Therefore, the only way you can improve the bot is to remove it entirely.
Remove MBFC? Yes, that’s part of the discussion and the point of this post. The struggle seems to be over the API, but I’d love to have suggestions to bring to the rest of the team. As I have said multiple times, it is not my decision to remove the bot, I’m simply here for suggestions that the rest of the team would be open to.
Whose decision is it, then?
It’s a team decision and I am the newest mod on the team. The main developer of the bot is an admin, who ultimately would be the one to implement any changes.
So it is in part your decision. I’m pretty sure the admins aren’t forcing you to have it here.
During your next shift, you should do something that nobody on your team or your supervisor wants you to do. Lmk how that goes for you
The bot is basically a spammer saying “THIS ARTICLE SUCKS EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T READ IT” on every damn post. If that was a normal user account you’d ban it.
My personal view is to remove the bot. I don’t think we should be promoting one organisations particular views as an authority. My suggestion would be to replace it with a pinned post linking to useful resources for critical thinking and analysing news. Teaching to fish vs giving a fish kind of thing.
If we are determined to have a bot like this as a community then I would strongly suggest at the very least removing the bias rating. The factuality is based on an objective measure of failed fact checks which you can click through to see. Although this still has problems, sometimes corrections or retractions by the publisher are taken note of and sometimes not, leaving the reader with potentially a false impression of the reliability of the source.
For the bias rating, however, it is completely subjective and sometimes the claimed reasons for the rating actually contradict themselves or other 3rd party analysis. I made a thread on this in the support community but TLDR, see if you can tell the specific reason for the BBC’s bias rating of left-centre. I personally can’t, which is troubling because in my view it casts doubt on the reliability of the whole system.
I can’t see how this can help advance the goal (and it is a good goal) of being aware of source bias when in effect, we are simply adding another bias to contend with. I suspect it’s actually an intractable problem which is why I suggest linking to educational resources instead. In my home country critical analysis of news is a required course but it’s probably not the case everywhere and honestly I could probably use a refresher myself if some good sources exist for that.
Thanks for those involved in the bot thoughf for their work and for being open to feedback. I think the goal is a good one, I just don’t think this solution really helps but I’m sure others have different views.
Removing the bias rating might be enough indeed.
Nah even credibility is subjective to MBFC.
The bot calls Al Jazeera “mixed” factually (which is normally reserved for explicit propaganda sources), and then if you look at the details, they don’t even pretend it has anything to do with their factual record – just, okay they’re not lying but they’re so against Israel that we have to say something bad about them.
One issue with poor media literacy is that I don’t think people are going to go out of their way to improve their literacy on their own just from a pinned post. We could include a link in the bot’s comment to a resource like that though.
Do you think that the bias rating would be improved by aggregating multiple factors checkers’ opinions into one score?
Yeah it’s definitely a good point, although I would argue people not interested in improving their media literacy should not be exposed to a questionable bias rating as they are the most likely to take it at face value and be misled.
The idea of multiple bias sources is an interesting one. It’s less about quantity than quality though I think. If there are two organisations that use thorough and consistent rating systems it could be useful to have both. I’m still not convinced that it’s even a solvable problem though but maybe I’m just being too pessimistic and someone out there has come up with a good solution.
Either way I appreciate that it’s a really tough job to come up with a solution here so best of luck to you and thanks for reading the feedback.
In literally every thread I’ve seen it post in, it gets downvoted to hell.
You don’t need every post to have a comment basically saying “this source is ok”. Just post that the source is unreliable on posts with unreliable sources. The definition of what is left out right is so subjective these days, that it’s pretty useless. Just don’t bother.
I agree with that. Having a warning message when the source is known to be extremely biased and/or unreliable is probably a good thing, but it doesn’t need to be in every single thread.
If a source is that bad, it should be banned. I think bot comments on just some posts presents inconsistency.
My personal view is that the bot provides a net negative, and should be removed.
Firstly, I would argue that there are few, if any, users whom the bot has helped avoid misinformation or a skewed perspective. If you know what bias is and how it influences an article then you don’t need the bot to tell you. If you don’t know or care what bias is then it won’t help you.
Secondly, the existence of the bot implies that sources can be reduced to true or false or left or right. Lemmy users tend to deal in absolutes of right or wrong. The world exists in the nuance, in the conflict between differing perspectives. The only way to mitigate misinformation is for people to develop their own skeptical curiosity, and I think the bot is more of a hindrance than a help in this regard.
Thirdly, if it’s only misleading 1% of the time then it’s doing harm. IDK how sources can be rated when they often vary between articles. It’s so reductive that it’s misleading.
As regards an open database of bias, it doesn’t solve any of the issues listed above.
In summary, we should be trying to promote a healthy sceptical curiosity among users, not trying to tell them how to think.
Thanks for the feedback. I have had the thought about it feeling like mods trying to tell people how to think, although I think crowdsourcing an open source solution might make that slightly better.
One thing that’s frustrating with the MBFC API is that it reduces “far left” and “lean left” to just “left.” I think that gets to your point about binaries, but it is a MBFC issue, not an issue in how we have implemented it. Personally, I think it is better on the credibility/reliability bit, since it does have a range there.
That’s perhaps a small part of what I meant about binaries. My point is, the perspective of any given article is nuanced, and categorising bias implies that perspectives can be reduced to one of several.
For example, select a contentious issue like abortion. Collect 100 statements from 100 people regarding various related issues, health concerns, ethics, when an embryo becomes a fetus, fathers rights. Finally label each statement as either pro-choice or pro-life.
For sobering trying to understand the complex issues around abortion, the labels are not helpful, and they imply that the entire argument can be reduced to a binary choice. In a word it’s reductive. It breeds a culture of adversity rather than one of understanding.
In addition, I can’t help but wonder how much “look at this cool thing I made” is present here. I love playing around with web technologies and code, and love showing off cool things I make to a receptive audience. Seeking feedback from users is obviously a healthy process, and I praise your actions in this regard. However, if I were you I would find it hard not to view that feedback through the prism of wanting users to find my bot useful.
As I started off by saying, I think the bot provides a net negative, as it undermines a culture of curious scepticism.
Just a point of correction, it does distinguish between grades. There is “Center-Left,” “Left,” and “Extreme Left.”
I think it should be removed
@[email protected] Why did you stop replying to posts here? Most people is telling you the bot is bullshit. You stopped commenting in this thread while being active elsewhere, are you going to take action or not?
I’m not the admin who created the bot. I’m a mod who is collecting feedback on behalf of the entire mod team.
Just to be perfectly clear: because I am the face of this feedback, you can feel free to say whatever you want to me. It’s odd that you seem to harbor ill feelings towards me in particular just because I pushed for collecting user feedback on this issue.
you can feel free to say whatever you want to me
my cat likes to sit in my window seal but I accidentally knocked the curtain rod down. She has been laying in the bunched up curtain that’s laying on the floor, I think she likes it better than then window seal. However the window is right out the front of the house so anytime I come home after a long day I see her watching me roll up the driveway and it makes me feel good. I don’t know if it would be best to move the bunched up curtain back to the window or let her stay on the floor and not see her when I get home :(
Putting aside the bone apple tea moment… I had to replace blinds because of an overzealous dog who loved watching the street. I just had to permanently keep the blinds open for him. Maybe you could do some sort of compromise solution like that? Ig what I’m saying is leave the curtains where they are and buy new ones?
You seem alright
How do you rate bias without bias? What is the bot’s definition of left or right? How did you build your ratings?
It’s all bullshit, man.
I blocked it straight away so I don’t have a dog in this fight but I’m instantly skeptical of any organization that claims to be the arbiter of what is biased and to what degree.
Im sorry but the sole concept of the bot is bullshit and as many have said already the idea is biased per se. I wish i lived in the same world as mbfc where it seems like all media is left-center.
If anything, what would be needed would be a bot that checked if the information on that article has any known missinformation or incorrect/wrong facts. And that would be extremely hard to maintain and update as a lot of news are posted before any fact checking can be done.
One problem I’ve noticed is that the bot doesn’t differentiate between news articles and opinion pieces. One of the most egregious examples is the NYT. Opinion pieces aren’t held to the same journalistic standards as news articles and shouldn’t be judged for bias and accuracy in the same way as news content.
I believe most major news organizations include the word “Opinion” in titles and URLs, so perhaps that could be something keyed off of to have the bot label these appropriately. I don’t expect you to judge the bias and accuracy of each opinion writer, but simply labeling them as “Opinion pieces are not required to meet accepted journalistic standards and bias is expected.” would go a long way.
Thanks for this. As a mod of /c/news, I hadn’t really thought about that. We don’t allow opinion pieces, but this is very relevant if we roll out a new bot for all the communities that currently use the MBFC bot.
No problem. Specifically came to my attention about a week ago on this post where the bot reported on an opinion piece as if it was straight news.
BTW, I actually do appreciate the bot and think it’s doing about as well as it can given the technical limitations of the platform.
Hi. I have a suggestion:
Try to make it more clear that this is not a flawless rating (as that is impossible).
Ways to implement:
- Make sure the bot says something along the lines of “MBFC rates X news as Y” and not “X news is Y”.
- Make a caveat (collapsable) at the bottom, that says something along the lines of “MBFC is not flawless. It has an american-centric bias, is not particularly clear on methodology, to the point where wikipedia deems it unreliable; however, we think it is better to have this bot in place as a rough estimate, to discourage posting from bad sources”
- If possible, add other sources, Like: “MBFC rates the Daily Beast as mostly reliable, Ad Fontes Media rates it as unreliable, and Wikipedia says it is of mixed reliability”
- Remove the left right ratings. We already have a reliability and quality rating, which is much more useful. The left-right rating is frankly poorly done and all over the place, and honestly doesn’t serve much purpose.
This contributes significantly to the noise issue most people complain about
Interesting that people say that opinion pieces should not be held to the same standard. I personally see such pieces contribute to fake news going around. Shouldn’t a platform with reach, held accountable for wrong information, they hide behind an opinion piece?
It’s not a question of “should” - an opinion piece is rhetoric, not reporting. You can fact check some of it sometimes but functionally can’t hold it to the same standards as a regular news article. I agree that this can sometimes lead to “alternative facts” and disingenuous arguments, but the only other option is to forbid the publication of them which is obviously an infringement of first amendment rights. It’s messy, and it can lead to people being misinformed, but it’s what we’re stuck with.
This. Otherwise op-eds get a free pass to launder opinions the paper wants to publish, but can’t.
Can you explain how a piece with a title like “Helldivers is awesome and fun” can be judged at all for factual accuracy?
The NYT ran an opinion recently where the author pretty clearly was using the NYT along with other outlets as part of a voter demobilization tactic in which the author lied about not voting. The NYT was skewered on twitter, and had to alter the opinion after the fact. It seems like some basic fact checking would have been useful in that situation. Or really, just any amount of critical thought on the part of the NYT in general.
