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…

  • zazo@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Same reason I don’t trust it - imagine rating fking BBC (the literal pro-state violence, austerity supporting, anti-immigration governmental mouth piece as “left-center”)

    It just distorts people’s perception of what political biases are and makes them complacent by relying on an automated bot to do the important work of using your own judgment for what constitutes as moral or justified.

    By letting it platform itself on lemmy, it’s basically inserting itself as the de facto expert on the topic - so for example, people overseas might see BBC rated as left-center and highly factual and start believing that wanting to “secure your borders” is a thing that UK leftist want. Well excuse me if I don’t want a privately owned (even if open source) US company deciding what political views others should have.

    • otp@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      3 months ago

      imagine rating fking BBC (the literal pro-state violence, austerity supporting, anti-immigration governmental mouth piece as “left-center”)

      I believe it uses the American standard where anything based in reality is left of “center”, lol