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Feedback needed for new rules
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
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Problem with that is moderator bias. Can you list unbiased sources? Be better to just have a list of approved sources, imo.
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
This is the chart I sent to the mods over a discord message.
Basically, anything in the middle three columns would be "preferred" and the furthest left and right columns would be "not-preferred". Again, stuff from the furthest left and right columns are not subject to instant removal and some could still fly if you can't find another site posting the content, but generally, it isn't that difficult to find another source that wrote an article about the same topic.
It would be ridiculous to think there are totally "non-biased" sites, the goal here is really just to not have constant posts from Fox News or the Huffington Post, let alone sites that veer even further in either direction, with the endgame being that this doesn't wind up being a massive echo chamber of a community for any particular political leaning.
Edit - Open to suggestions about said chart, and other sites users think fall into any of the categories
It concerns me somewhat that that chart doesn't consider accuracy at all merely whose biases stories most align with. There's been a major problem with subtle and sometimes not so subtle lies being pushed in various news sources. The fact they give OAN any kind of semi-good rating at all is alarming as OAN regularly runs entirely made up stories with either no factual basis or which are at best a series of rumors tied together with editorialization and inference. There needs to be a much stronger delineation between opinion pieces and reporting and far too many news sites blur those lines.
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/fact-check-bias-chart
The same website does offer a fact-check chart as well. Could possibly cross reference it with the bias chart. However, the plan is a blacklist rather than a whitelist, so most sources are going to be okay, at least to start with. If anything becomes a problem it can certainly be blacklisted quickly once that bot is up.
Well, that chart claims to show how biased a fact checking site is once again not how accurate it is. What I'm most interested in is historical data and sources. Does X news site regularly post stories that claim certain details as facts that later turned out to be false? Do they provide sources and how reliable are those sources? Do they claim things as factual that at the time are known to be false?
Having a evolving story with a lot of unknowns is one thing as long as it's clear what's speculation or what details are unconfirmed. Once in a while having a mistake in your reporting as long as you own up to that mistake and post a correction is acceptable. Regularly reporting on rumors with little or no corroborating evidence particularly if they're not very blatantly calling it out as rampant speculation is not acceptable.
One thing that news sites need to do a better job about is vetting their sources. Fox News in particular massively abuses this. They regularly allow absolute kooks on their news and present them along side well respected experts as if the two are equivalent sources and it gives the false impression that completely unfounded claims have some degree of factuality. This is why historical checking is so important, so that you can see if some news site regularly runs stories that turn out to be false or misleading or that regularly include false or misleading info.
That's not a bad chart, the general problem is maintaining a balance. You're probably better off straight banning anything in the far left/right columns, because once you let a few through it swings fast.
The other problem that frequently happens is not treating both sides biased sources equally. If you make an automated message about potentially biased sources, you need to use it on all sources from each side, not equal numbers of sources. That chart has almost twice as many left leaning publishers as right leaning. This is important, because there are simply more left leaning publications (at least at the large publisher level). It doesn't mean you have to allow NewsMax for balance, it means moderators need to be aware that most posts are going to be left leaning by numbers, which will create a feeling of favoring left sources.
This is of the utmost importance to me (us). It's definitely not going to be a situation where we say "Oh we blacklisted a source from the right, we have to hit one from the left now". If a source is credible and not incredibly biased, it will always be allowed.
That link feels about as good as you're going to get.
I'm working on making a list of banned sources (which everyone can read, and discuss), which can then integrate with the bot, so it will tell you that the source is not allowed.
I agree. Bias is hard to eliminate, even assuming good intentions. Also, sometimes there are topics that are only reported on by outlets that have a certain political slant. This gets into a gray area because sometimes those topics are invented or exaggerated to be more newsworthy than they are… but at other times they may be important news that simply isn’t covered by more neutral media for various reasons.
That said, I definitely could do without the daily hate pieces that slanted outlets tend to produce. So I think it’s a good idea, just might need some thoughtful tweaking.