Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker bot? - eviltoast

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…

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    No, it’s actually not that arbitrarily black and white based on nothing more than terminology. As an example, we have MBFC that rates international sources by an American scale. This exists, so clearly it is possible. I also don’t see how it whitewashes conservative rags when it rates them on both accuracy, where many of them do poorly, and categorizes them on the right, where they belong.

    Yes, they do advocate for drastically reducing the federal government down to basic law enforcement and military. I agree that this is a bad idea. That they want to “destroy the government” if given the chance is a slippery slope argument though. Regardless, the question is how radical it is on the American left/right axis, and these days, it is not particularly. 40 years ago perhaps it was further right.

    No, you’re very much exaggerating, consistently and across the board. Company scrip was not widespread, it was a feature of mining and logging towns, in an era where our country still ran on resource extraction. Reducing government and destroying government are factually two different things. Companies running around with PMCs is extremely unlikely any time this century. Much like these exaggerations, you ask things like if I’m paid by MBFC, as if they would pay someone to make comments on some tiny, obscure social media platform. You’re a troll, quite clearly. I would not be surprised in the slightest if you come here with your discord buddies just pretending to be a leftist, just to stir up shit and have a good time.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Oh no I was wondering if you were the one responsible for their shit model. You’re certainly very invested in minimizing the impact of irresponsibly labeling media. And irresponsible is the best interpretation.

      At any rate we’re done here until you take a US history course. They’re free online.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Nope, afraid not, I am a completely volunteer opponent of online bullshit. Even the farthest left side, factuality is just too important.

        Some quibbling about something being slightly off on the left/right scale is far less important than actual fact checking.

        Toodles.