Because not everyone has strong media literacy. I may have the means to assess the quality of a source on my own but that’s not the case for everyone. This problem will hopefully solve itself with more users on Lemmy who can call out bad sources but right now it’s not uncommon to find posts with zero comments minus the bias bot.
Which is why I just asked if anyone knew of any alternatives. I will say, I’m at a minimum that the bot has people talking about how news should be vetted, at least.
They are using MBFC’s bias rating too, with some additional ratings from other sources for a few publishers. Seems to have a strong US-centric view as well.
I asked in another thread complaining about MBFC if anyone knew of alternatives and nobody shared anything. Anyone got any?
Edit: Fuck me for asking I guess…
Here’s an analogy:
The alternative to drinking bleach is not drinking bleach. As opposed to drinking “diet bleach,” or something equally ridiculous.
Why do you feel it would need to be replaced?
Because not everyone has strong media literacy. I may have the means to assess the quality of a source on my own but that’s not the case for everyone. This problem will hopefully solve itself with more users on Lemmy who can call out bad sources but right now it’s not uncommon to find posts with zero comments minus the bias bot.
But the bot is biased itself. That’s worse than no information.
Which is why I just asked if anyone knew of any alternatives. I will say, I’m at a minimum that the bot has people talking about how news should be vetted, at least.
Some people have mentioned https://ground.news. I haven’t tried it, this is not a vouch for their credibility.
They are using MBFC’s bias rating too, with some additional ratings from other sources for a few publishers. Seems to have a strong US-centric view as well.
Thanks for the reply! Ground.news is used by the bot to show potential alternative sources for the story which I’ve found useful.
That part actually is useful. It wouldn’t be getting down voted if it was just that.