this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
85 points (96.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

32833 readers
2061 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If I can find three reputable sources that say the same thing, I feel pretty confident in accepting it as fact. The real trick is finding reputable sources. Media Bias Fact Check is really helpful for this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Have you ever tried the 1 Left, 1 center, 1 right source when looking into something? I try to do this myself when I have the time and can find the articles.

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

How do you define the centre? Do you account for existing wide-spread social biases? E.g. systemic racism, or the neoliberal belief that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet?

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

The center is the middle of the right and left.

I am unsure what you are asking after that.

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

They're referring to the shifting variance between political sides and the range expressed between them. The Overton Window usually.

The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse. The key to the concept is that the window changes over time; it can shift, or shrink or expand. It exemplifies "the slow evolution of societal values and norms".

Outside of this window you still have Left and Right, but they're the more extreme beliefs that the general populace doesn't currently accept. The window shifting over time means something that would have been considered absolutely insane 20 years ago, could be entirely mainstream now.

A current example would be federal deployment of the military to handle local protests when there is no declared State of Emergency and local government doesn't need or want assistance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yep, that's a big part of it..

But there's other aspects too (see my other comment replying to Arkouda)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But left and right aren't absolute positions, they change in time. E.g. democrats now hold a lot of similar positions to what the republicans held in the 1980s (and also a lot of different ones).

Left and right are also a unidimensional approximation of a multidimensional value space.. E.g. most people on the left disagree with nearly everything Marjorie Taylor Greene says, but they agree with her that the US should not be supporting Israel's war on Iran.

There are also people on the left AND the right that oppose global economic liberalisation, but what is often called the "centre" supports it - clearly not a "middle" stance.

So how can you meaningfully define what is led and what is right, for the purpose of your reading?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But left and right aren’t absolute positions, they change in time.

What do you think that means for the center?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That it also changes in time and is not absolute. And also, in many ways, that it does it does not exist (in the sense that the "centre" in one dimension might be correlated with extremes in another)

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

If the center, right, and left change over time how do you expect me to define "center" beyond that which is situated between left and right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just showed you an example of where "centre" as commonly defined is not between left and right, but opposed by both..

I guess the point is, I think those definitions are deficient, and using them as a guide to understanding what is good or true is probably a flawed methodology. It's kind of reminiscent of Fox News' old "fair and balanced" slogan (which never was, but also just missed the point of what journalism is supposed to be about, which is truth).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just showed you an example of where “centre” as commonly defined is not between left and right, but opposed by both…

The plural of anecdote is not data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If your hypothesis is "all swans are white", and I show you a black swan, do you reject your hypothesis?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Tell you what, you define right and left, I will define the center of it if that will help you wrap your brain around it. Otherwise I have no idea what it is you are trying to accomplish other than starting a zero sum fight so unless you get it together I'm out.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It is itself extremely biased, you believed an authority that isn't neutral.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

To my knowledge they have been criticized for being biased, but from what I can find their ratings don't differ drastically from other providers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Their problem is that any news agency in the middle east is automatically "untrustworthy" with quotes like "they haven't been found to report false stories, but we still give them an untrustworthy rating".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you have examples of reputable sources from the middle east that have an unfair rating?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I already gave you the examples, I said that they unfairly represent middle eastern news as untrustworthy. Or are you here to nitpick and "um ackthcshually"?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is itself extremely biased, you believed an authority that isn’t neutral.

Their problem is that any news agency in the middle east is automatically “untrustworthy” with quotes like “they haven’t been found to report false stories, but we still give them an untrustworthy rating”.

I already gave you the examples, I said that they unfairly represent middle eastern news as untrustworthy. Or are you here to nitpick and “um ackthcshually”?

You have provided 0 examples of a middle eastern news source that is unfairly ranked.

Are you going to keep being combative and waste both of our time refusing to answer a simple good faith question?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

From their own description of Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera has been a valuable voice for the Palestinians as most Western media favors Israel. While most of its reporting has been factual in covering the conflict they have demonstrated one-sided reporting that tends to denigrate Israel.

Mixed for factual reporting. They cite 2 articles that they have found to be false since forever. They complain about "loaded language". Yet they say "straight news has minimal bias". Then they give Times of Israel "high credibility" and speak how unbiased their language is, giving the same examples as they gave in the Al Jazeera one for "biased language".

High credibility is 2 "levels" higher than the middle of the field "mixed".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you have examples of other bias/fact check sources that contradict the score from MBFS?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Jfc you aren't talking to a search engine. Want to search, ask google. I directly provided info on their bias. The entire thing was controversial like a year ago here on lemmy. I'm not a monkey to be jumping through hoops to prove something to you. Don't want to believe me even after I provided the example, don't, I don't care.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The plural of anecdote is not data. From what I found the ratings on other sites were citing the same things, which is why I asked if you had something substantial considering your point of view.

Stop being such a combative child if you want to communicate with others. I was asking you for information I couldn't find, not arguing with you. Take a breathe outside bud.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You are arguing with me and you are looking to confirm your existing bias. You are asking me for ridiculous proof for what's essentially someone saying "they are biased, here is one example" and you keep asking for more. As I said, I am not your monkey, don't want to look for more, don't want to put in the effort, then stay in your bubble of ignorance.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago

I have not once argued anything in any direction. I asked you to point me in the direction of what I couldn't find, because what I could find contradicts you.

If you don't want to support your claim jog on and try to start a fight with someone else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How so? Seemed reasonable enough for the few things I checked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

They're incredibly pro-Israel and anti-anything else in the middle east. Reputable information gets a lower reliability rating from them "just because".