fukhueson

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Cool, what is described in the article is antisemitism. These doctors have nothing to do with what's going in Israel, and calls for murdering Jews is antisemitic. Wall of text doesn't negate that, and none of this provides cover for the people committing antisemitism.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Calling for the murder of Jews = antisemitic. Doxxing doctors who have nothing to do with what's going on in Israel = antisemitic.

This is normalizing hatred towards Jews.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Calling for the murder of Jews = antisemitic. Doxxing doctors who have nothing to do with what's going on in Israel = antisemitic.

This is normalizing hatred towards Jews.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

And reliable.

Since reading might be hard:

Overall, we rate the National Post Right-Center Biased based on story selection that favors the right and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

And what the article describes is objectively antisemitic.

I can't even believe I have to say this after the comment replied to a quote calling for the murder of Jews. How tone deaf.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

A relationship between them without Trump and Musk in government has gone well. Once they both have their hands on the levers, I'm feeling it won't be as similar as before. In addition, NASA provides an enormous amount of tools and data to the environmental and climate sciences, and I can't imagine Trump will allow that to continue in its current form. I can only hope this guy will stand up to them if push comes to shove, like in Trump's first administration.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

I predict substantial outsourcing to SpaceX. Good for Trump/Musk, not good for NASA.

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

ITT: we should make fun of this because it isn't good enough to solve the Trump problem entirely.

Wonder who wants to sow hopelessness? Any takers?

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Yes I was, i just wasn't fooled.

Edit: gonna drop this great explanation here and call it good, I don't think I need to entertain mbfc skeptics any longer like they have some sort of valid point. It's mostly users who don't like the idea that they get their news from propaganda, or don't like that a highly reliable and factual source challenges their views... Like, for example, here.

https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4589/is-media-bias-fact-check-a-reliable-site

I waited 2 weeks before posting this answer to give other's the opportunity to weigh in and do research. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. I didn't want to come off as "of course it's reliable" because of confirmation bias or falling into the appeal to authority fallacy. Since there isn't anyone else that wants to put their foot forward, I will, with lots of research.

TL;DR

Yes, Media Bias/Fact Check is normally reliable. It's not 100% reliable, but nothing is. It's research is done by humans who have biases, even if they are unconscious biases. However, when they are made aware of mistakes, they take steps to address the issue.

Baseline Research

In order to validate if Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) is reliable, I need to set some sort of baseline as to what's reliable, what's not reliable, and how I determine reliability. So I needed to research other sites I included in my research. Yes, we're going down the rabbit hole, Dorothy, but I'm cutting it a bit short so this Answer eventually ends.

I've left off research on sites that were clearly biased in their speech patterns. I've also avoided articles behind paywalls, mostly because I don't have access to those articles, either. I've gone through dozens (maybe even over a hundred or more) articles, sources, opinion pieces, and more to get as relevant and unbiased information as I can.

Snopes

After reseaching this site, I find it to be reliable. Not only based on authoritative/reliable sources, but also it's generally accepted by people in general to be reliable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48867870

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/is-snopes-biased-reliable/

https://credibilitycoalition.org/credcatalog/project/snopes/

https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20120928/NEWS/801246493

and many more......

Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart

I'd rate this also as reliable. It gets updated and has it's methodology published. The research is published, but seems limited in some cases. However, sites with hundred or tens of thousands of articles can't all be checked for biases. Maybe they will in the future, but that's unreasonable today. It's a fairly new chart and has it's critics, though.

https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/media-bias-chart

https://www.cityam.com/how-to-read-financial-news-coronavirus-confirmation-bias-and-political-bias/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28

https://lifehacker.com/check-a-news-sources-bias-with-this-chart-1844330891

https://credibilitycoalition.org/credcatalog/project/the-media-bias-chart/

AllSides

AllSides also seems to be reliable, however this is a essentially a polling site, so it relies on people's personal opinions, rather than a professional researcher(s). It's also exclusively for the USA.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/allsides

https://www.slant.co/options/32441/~allsides-review

https://www.ksfr.org/post/allsidescom-calls-out-media-bias-both-sides-promoting-democratic-dialogue-and-free-speech

Many sites (including MBFC) are listed and rated well in this PDF by Unesco:

https://en.ccunesco.ca/-/media/Files/Unesco/Resources/2019/08/AGuideForTheConscientiousCitizenChristopherDornan.pdf

I could go on, but this seems like it's getting redundant. Many of the articles that I've read include references to multiple fact checking sites, which generally include MBFC, which I've been saving for now, the research of MBFC.

By the way, the reason I did this "baseline research" is so that I could compare if MBFC is as reliable as these other fact checking sites that are considered to be reliable by the consensus of the public and the media in general.

Media Bias/Fact Check

This site publishes their methodology, includes their research on each page (example), and uses other well-known fact checking sites to do their research (some of them listed above). It's also quite often listed in fact checking articles to be used as a source, and listed as an equal to other fact checking sites that have been around for much longer (again, some of them listed above). This site doesn't fact check every article of each site it rates, but again, that's not reasonable due to the relatively short life of MBFC and the fact that it's all done by humans.

https://www.helenbrowngroup.com/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/

https://www.badcredit.org/news/media-bias-fact-check-serves-as-a-watchdog-for-consumers/

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check

https://www.quora.com/What-is-MediaBiasFactCheck-com

https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/business/fact-checking-is-the-remedy-for-disinformation/article_7fd61aab-e459-54f9-bed4-17201682a14b.html

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/check-political-bias-media-site/

MIT used MBFC as a baseline when creating an AI to look for media bias.

The University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility also uses MBFC as a baseline for their "Iffy Quotient", which tracks factual information in Twitter and Facebook.

Against

There's plenty of criticism about MBFC, but mostly from people who think their ratings are wrong. I haven't included that, since they are obviously biased in their own favor. There's even an article written by Just Facts Daily that complains about their rating, which I included in the original Question, so I won't rehash it here.

An article by Tamar Wilner makes a snide remark about the site, calling the founder an "armchair academic" and an "armchair media analyst". On the MBFC, founder Dave Van Zandt calls himself an armchair media analyst with over 20 years experience, so I'm not sure that's such a negative. Also, Wilner's article was written over 2 years ago, so there's plenty Van Zandt and his team could have learned.

https://www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php

Wiltner writes about media bias and other related information, so should be considered a reliable resource.

Tamar Wilner is a Dallas-based freelance journalist and researcher who writes about misinformation, fact-checking, science communication, and all things media. https://www.cjr.org/author/tamar-wilner

The article asks if people care or whether we should even bother with rating sites, since there is no "baseline". She mentions that AI and other scientific methods to discover bias in articles are struggling and mentions a few sites that are already being used for bias checking.

The problems she mentions about MBFC (and Ad Fontes) in her article seemingly have been since addressed and hints at a bias against non-professional fact checkers, like herself. So basically she's just complaining that they are new sites that don't have a large enough human pool to pull from and their sample sizes are too small. While those are relevant criticisms, they are going to happen with any new resource, which both MBFC and Ad Fontes were at the time of the article.

As I mentioned in my Question, Wilner also writes for the Poynter Institute, which also has a negative reception of MBFC and the article was written later the same year. While I can't confirm anything, it seems likely Wiltner could have a personal influence with the writers of that 2nd article.

Conclusion

While MBFC has it's problems and critics, so do all other fact checking sites. Some of the problems come from "too small" of a sample of a site. That's understandable, since no fact checking site checks 100% of the information on the checked-site. It just means that more time and effort is needed to get a larger sample size, and with continuing checks of the sites, the ratings will become more accurate over time.

And the human factor can be significant, but that can be mitigated with double-checks by multiple people. It can also be mitigated by the rubric used to determine bias and fact checks.

With MBFC generally closely mirroring other fact checking sites that are also found to be reliable (in my Baseline Research above) and the fact that the information is updated moderately regularly, I'd give Media Bias\Fact Check the thumbs up for being a reliable source.

CYA

As much as I've presented here, I'm not infallible and may have missed something relevant. Instead of arguing in the comments, please write your own answer. If there's something wrong with my research, those comments are welcome, but only so I can fix this Answer, rather than add new sections. And because this Q&A is about media bias and reliability, consider your sources before making a claim, as it will be checked.

I've tried to use a wide range of sources without using MBFC to verify their reliability, to avoid circular logic. While I've been able to verify that most of them are reliable through third party sources (not listed in this Answer), if something isn't actually reliable, please let me know so I can address it.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Agree, think I'll trust the article.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-conversation/

Overall, we rate The Conversation Least Biased based on covering both the right-center and left-center politically, as well as covering evidence-based topics. We also rate them Very High for factual reporting due to excellent sourcing of information and a clean fact check record. In fact, The Conversation is an IFCN fact-checker.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Weird, the article doesn't seem to share that perspective.

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Agree, I see no benefit Hamas brings to Palestinians. Not that Netanyahu has been any sort of angel, Hamas is the de facto governing authority and puts itself above it's people, and violently shuts down dissent, which is why any polls regarding support for Hamas should be taken with a grain of salt. They're terrorists, and their actions thus far haven't backed up their claims that they simply support liberation for Palestinians. Sinwar has been a road block in all negotiations that would have helped put an end to this round of fighting, as has Netanyahu, Hamas never officially accepted a cease fire since sinwar didn't. This is not to give license to what Netanyahu is doing, but depending on who you talk to here on Lemmy you'd think Hamas was simply running an ice cream parlor that funded their efforts to negotiate peace with Israel, while the IDF rolled in daily to satiate their need for Palestinian baby blood.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas

https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hamas-attacked-when-it-did

https://rdi.org/articles/why-hamas-wont-surrender/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Gaza_economic_protests

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Gaza_economic_protests

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vewvp14zdo

https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-june-24-2024/

QUESTION: Yeah. Sorry – (laughter) – I have so many. Yesterday, the prime minister – the Israeli prime minister – basically rejected the whole Biden plan, and he said, okay, we want to exchange some of the hostages for a few prisoners and that’s it, that’s the end of it. So do you still think that the ball is in Hamas’s court and not in Israel’s court?

MR MILLER: So I saw the comments the prime minister made yesterday, and then I saw the statement his office put out clarifying that they wanted to secure the release of all hostages, and then I saw the further statement the prime minister said today where he said – made clear he supports the proposal that Israel put on the table and the President laid out. So I will just say I think all of us that speak publicly at times make mistakes and misspeak, and when we do so, we have an obligation to come clarify. And we’re glad he did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_Israel–Hamas_war_ceasefire_proposal

On 10 June, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2735 backing the 31 May proposal, noting Israel’s acceptance thereof and calling on Hamas to accept the proposed agreement as well. The following day, Hamas and Islamic Jihad replied to the resolution with amendments to the proposal, including a timeline for a permanent ceasefire and troop withdrawals, and the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister stated, “The claim that Israel agreed to end the war before achieving all its goals is a total lie”. The United States responded to the Palestinians’ proposed amendments by calling them unworkable. The day after that, Hamas denied adding any new ideas to the ceasefire proposal. On 21 June, Hamas stated, “The priority is to stop the criminal war on our people”, and three days later, Netanyahu stated Israel would only accept a partial ceasefire that would not end the war.

…

October 2024, U.S. officials said that they believed that Sinwar was no longer interested in a ceasefire deal with Israel. These officials said that Sinwar had become “inflexible” and “fatalistic” as the war had progressed, adding that he was hoping for it to expand into a wider regional conflict involving Iran.

https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-october-17-2024/

So, a few things about that. First of all, as you know, we’ve been trying to achieve a ceasefire that returns the hostages home, alleviates the suffering of the Palestinian people, and ends the war for many months now. And the chief obstacle to reaching that ceasefire and bringing an end to the war has been Sinwar, who has refused to negotiate at all in recent weeks and has said no time and time again. That obstacle has obviously been removed. Can’t predict that that means that whoever replaces Hamas[1] will agree to a ceasefire, but it does remove what has been in recent months the chief obstacle to getting one. So,we’re going to continue to work with our partners to try to find an end to the war. The Secretary already today while on Air Force One with the President flying to Berlin called the prime minister of Qatar, who has been one of our two mediators – other mediators – working to reach an end to the war. He called the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia to talk about the path forward, and he will be having additional contacts in the days ahead.

https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-august-7-2024/

I don’t think there is. I really don’t think – it’s what the Secretary said yesterday, obviously, and I think is accurate, which is it doesn’t really change the situation. Two things can be true: Number one, Sinwar is a brutal terrorist with blood on his hands, including the blood of American citizens, and not just American citizens but citizens of many countries around the world. Let’s remember, it’s not just citizens of Israel that were killed on October 7th; there were citizens of multiple countries, as I said, including the United States. That is true.

It is also true that he continues to be the person that calls the shots for Hamas. And that was true before the death of the leader of the – the political leader of Hamas; it continues to be true today. Ultimately, it was Sinwar that had the final decision-making authority, as we can see throughout these negotiations, on whether to accept a ceasefire or not.

I've posted things like this in the past which have gotten me falsely labeled as a genocide denialist and genocide apologist (rationalize for me how both of those things could be true...), but in reality it's the persistence here of the flawed idea that being critical of Hamas means you support Netanyahu. Which means dissent towards Hamas on Lemmy is thus attacked... Kinda like it is in Gaza. Go figure.

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

That does it, I'm voting Democrat!

fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

I think it's this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

The nirvana fallacy is the informal fallacy of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. It can also refer to the tendency to assume there is a perfect solution to a particular problem. A closely related concept is the "perfect solution fallacy".

By creating a false dichotomy that presents one option which is obviously advantageous—while at the same time being completely unrealistic—a person using the nirvana fallacy can attack any opposing idea because it is imperfect. Under this fallacy, the choice is not between real world solutions; it is, rather, a choice between one realistic achievable possibility and another unrealistic solution that could in some way be "better".

It is also related to the appeal to purity fallacy where the person rejects all criticism on basis of it being applied to a non ideal case.

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fukhueson @lemmy.world 1y ago

Inb4 Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans.

https://www.epi.org/publication/bidens-nlrb-restoring-rights/