this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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The tesseract Lemmy app, has a little overview from mediabiasfactcheck.com (MBFC). It seems like a clever way to foster a healthy community.

If you click on the ranking you get details.

ranking details for CNN

EDIT: Sorry to stir up an old hornet's nest.

EDIT2: Commenters have some valid criticisms of MBFC. Even if there are flaws, I would like to celebrate all attempts at elevating the conversations we are having.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (6 children)

No. And there never should be. And here's why. Bear with me for a moment but consider this. Part of the problem with this sort of thing is that people want their hands held. They want to be told what to think. Not to think critically for themselves. No matter how well intentioned. Such systems will always be sought to be abused. To manipulate people and their opinions. And at best they will always be subject to bias and blindness. The truly keep them from ever being universally useful.

Basic training and education in critical thinking skills will be far more to help people. Than relying on an app no matter how well intentioned to tell them how to think about something.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (3 children)

These are all valid points but they don't preclude the existence of an open-source alternative to MBFC, which is what the commenter you replied to was asking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I never implied that it did. Go ahead and make one. It will always do as much or more damage than it will ever do good. That's the point. There's bias in everything. Trusting someone else's bias to accurately convey the bias of something else, isn't making you more informed or a better consumer of media. Not in any meaningful way. Not in the way basic critical thinking skills can. It's just a game of bias telephone. And if you know how the game telephone goes. It should give you an indication to its efficacy.

It's not hard. There are some basic steps anyone can take to get started. Do not tolerate those who are intolerant of who someone is. Whether it's ethnicity or sexuality. If accusations are being made against groups. Especially ones that you have very little experience or contact with. Put yourself in that situation. Think about how you would go about things. Because that's more than likely how they would as well. And for everything else, especially things that are either hard science or factually based. Simply differ to the people who make it their life to study and understand those things. But never give their opinions outside of that field any weight.

Just those few basic things can illuminate a lot of bias and malintent. Leave you far more guarded and protected against misinformation and bias in the future. Which along with basic intellectual curiosity. Something most people have largely never valued. Will serve you far better than any app. Because the Insidious part about misinformation. Is that there's often some amount of Truth to it. Whether it's wrong because of malice or because of bias. Critical thinking and intellectual curiosity will always better serve you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

There is too much information to process for any one person to just use their critical thinking skills to fact check a news organization as large as CNN, much less every major news organization. No, it's not enough to teach critical thinking skills and hope every person is able to discern bias in the media they consume, because you're asking for extremely domain-specific skills and legwork that a single consumer just isn't capable of. Consumer watchdog organizations are a necessary part of protecting us against unreliable news agencies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Not really. No more than in the past. The difference is the 24/7 firehose of propaganda and indoctrination. The solution is to step away from the firehouse. Focus on the things that actually impact you. Or that you can influence. If someone is telling you to be afraid of people that you don't know, have never met, or ever had contact with. Ignore them and tune them out. It's legitimately that simple.

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