A reasonable criticism. Be the change you want to see in the world.

This tradition?

Let’s be clear that I am anti-Putin and anti-Kim.

Ad-hominem means “to the man” – that is, instead of attacking the message, one attacks the credibility of the messenger. This also includes when instead of defending the credibility of a message, one defends the credibility of the messenger. Ad-hominem is exactly the purpose of the MBFC bot. Instead of fact-checking the individual article, it tells you if the article is credible or not based on its clearly biased assessment of the article outlet.

You are correct in that ad-hominem is generally a terrible way of judging credibility. I am not making an ad-hominem fallacy. I am responding to an ad-hominem fallacy that has been spammed in every thread in this community.

Groups like MBFC use their position as gatekeepers of the political spectrum to disguise radical ideas as centrist positions, and it’s ironic that !world using such a biased propaganda platform to tell its readers what is credible.

Bias is not the same thing as propaganda, propaganda is not the same thing as misinformation. Articles should be evaluated on how factual they are, and there are plenty of platforms that are doing the hard work of verifying information without putting their political ideology above their credibility. This bot is a mistake.

Before removing the bot, !news mods removed comments critical of the bot, and ignored the overwhelming negative feedback and the consensus that the bot should be removed when they opened the discussion up to the community.

!politics and !world now appear to be willing to change course. The vote to “Kill” – stop their bot from advertising MBFC in all of their posts – appears to be leading in both communities.

If you upvote the Kill comment so that this lead becomes a landslide, you can make it even more embarrassing and difficult for them to claim ‘bots’ or backtrack.

MBFC is claiming CNN is Left-Center, when it is owned by conservative billionaire John Malone. This is an example of MBFC’s intentional distortion of the political spectrum by falsely representing it as dominated by a left-wing bias.

An example of CNN’s actual right-wing bias is when they put an obvious Trump Supporter on their televised panel of ‘undecided voters’. According to Parker Molloy from The New Republic, this isn’t “an isolated case of questionable representation in CNN’s voter panels. In fact, it appears to be part of a troubling pattern stretching back years.” She suggests it could be “a potential willingness to mislead viewers for the sake of compelling television.” - media ownership and their profit motive, and complicity of the media elite are sources of bias that MBFC does not adequately account for.

!politics and !world now appear to be willing to consider backing away from MBFC. The vote to “Kill” – stop their bot from advertising MBFC in all of community posts – appears to be leading in both communities.

If you upvote the Kill comment so that this lead becomes a landslide, you can make it even more embarrassing and difficult for them to claim ‘bots’ or backtrack.

ABC News is a brand of Disney Advertising. It is lead by a conservative billionaire, and is not a left-biased organization.

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. Dave Van Zandt has admitted to a US-centric bias in MBFC’s ratings. It’s fairly easy to notice an American conservative lean in MBFC’s bias ratings, as well as their credibility ratings.

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. 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.

Please choose “Kill” – to stop giving free advertising to MBFC on Lemmy.

• Lemmyverse.link for !world
• Lemmyverse.link for !politics

Voice of America (VOA) is a state media network funded by the United States of America, whose purpose is to project soft power through journalism. In 1948, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens to protect the public from propaganda by its own government. The restriction was removed in 2013 to to adapt to the Internet age.

In 2005, the Washington Post reported that suspected Al-qaeda operatives were flown into Thailand to be detained and tortured. VOA’s remote relay radio station in Udon Thani province has been widely suspected to be the torture site.

Most people do not believe that propaganda is anything that disagrees with the United States Government’s foreign policy, and find the idea that the VOA is less biased than the New York Times laughable. Lemmy.World endorses these absurdities by advertising Media Bias Fact Check in every post in their community. You have a limited time to let !politics and !world know what you think.

For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday, a decision that sparked widespread outrage among the paper’s staffers.

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

The Post reported the decision not to endorse was made by the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, citing two sources briefed on the matter.

– CNN

Media Bias Fact Check is a right-wing propaganda tool to repeat the laughable lie that the media has a left-wing bias.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, my vote audit shows no participation from any of the 29 banned sock accounts the in the !news feedback thread, or this one for that matter. Please take the votes more seriously. If you’d like to spread FUD about the legitimacy of a vote, ask an admin to audit them first so you can state with evidence that a specific vote has been manipulated.

People trust the software to tell them what others are thinking, and if you successfully spread the false idea that votes that disagree with you are manipulated, you’re not just arguing in bad faith, you’re undermining the federated system we should all want to succeed.

Rule 1 Ban Count: 5

• @LagrangePoint@lemmy.world (Permaban)
• @aniki@lemmings.world (15 day ban)
• @catloaf@lemm.ee (15 day ban)
• @DoctorButts@kbin.melroy.org (Permaban)
• @stormesp@lemm.ee (15 day ban)

Not a good look, mods.

I’m going to be fine without Lemmy, it’s not worth much.

That’s not the conclusion I’d like you to draw. I’m an admin of a Lemmy instance. I wouldn’t volunteer so much of my time if I didn’t think Lemmy was valuable.

Lemmy.World has a central role in the Threadiverse, but not an essential one. Sh.itjust.works, Lemm.ee, Reddthat.com or another general instance could easily take over that role if the consensus determines that Lemmy.World doesn’t deserve it. Beehaw.org is the largest instance to de-federate from LW, and if things continue or get worse, LW’s admin’s actions may result in a re-ordering of the Threadiverse structure. Lemmy.World is not the same as the Theadiverse.

This is a radical option that is not possible in any corporate form of social media. If it occurs or the specter of it instigates the LW admins to relent, it would be a huge victory for democracy on the Threadiverse. A Lemmy instance can’t exist without its hosts and admins, but it also relies on the consensus of its commenters, posters, and voters. This gives you as a participant unprecedented control of how the communities that you build engage with the news and the world.

They’ve also removed comments critical of the bot, and ignored the overwhelming negative feedback and the consensus that the bot should be removed when they’ve opened the discussion up to the community.

I’d be satisfied if my criticism changed the mods minds, but at this point they are not my target audience. My goal in these comments is to inform those who are on the fence about why the bot is a bad idea, and signal boost the consensus that the bot’s assessments are illegitimate.

MBFC claims CNN is Left-Center, when it is owned by conservative billionaire John Malone, one of the largest landlords in the world. Lemmy.World mods need to stop feeding flak organizations like MBFC. Corporate propaganda is harmful to democracy.

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.

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 @Rooki@Lemmy.World 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 !politics@Lemmy.World, 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.