this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
285 points (91.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27623 readers
1580 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 !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. 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 info@lemmy.world. 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 !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


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
 

No comments or anything, just lots of Downvotes.

(page 4) 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] toastus@feddit.org 24 points 5 months ago

Because many feel that the bot has a bias itself, making it useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

I have no horse in this race and don't downvote the bot myself, but I have also seen it call sources center left, that are definitely not left of any reasonable center.

[–] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 33 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

For me it's because the bias rating specifically is opaque and can be just plain wrong.

I could block it but if everyone who thought it was a bad idea just blocked it then it wouldn't get downvoted which might lead people to think everyone generally agreed with it.

At least when it's downvoted people take a step back and are less likely to just accept what it says.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out in my case at least I did go to the effort of actually trying to provide some constructive feedback on the bot through the proper channels rather than just downvoting and moving on.

[–] mashbooq@infosec.pub 45 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Because it reports sources known to be unreliable (like Jerusalem Post and EuroNews) as Highly Trustworthy

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 143 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)
  1. It's often wrong

  2. It's a bot and yet I still see it with the option to hide bots. Someone said it was flagged properly the other day, but since it's the ONLY self proclaimed bot that isn't filtered by the "block bot accounts" option in Lemmy, I call bullshit.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 52 points 5 months ago (6 children)

If it's trying to tell people that CNN is center-left, who knows wtf else is questionable (or outright wrong).

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 36 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ironically, bias fact checkers are also subject to biases so it could be that the bias fact checker was simply not that great in this instance.

However, I think jet explained the most likely situations well

[–] MrQuallzin@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

It's hard to be non-biased. There's not a single person who does not have a bias of some sort. The way people get bent out of shape over the bot makes me sad. It gives a decent starting point for anyone looking to start learning about the different biases and how different outlets report information. Of course it's not a perfect bot or website it's getting the info from, but it's a valuable tool.

I did block it myself though. Sync gives large previews of links, so it did get a bit spammy. This could be disabled in the app's settings, but it's a feature I like so I can easily get to linked articles or videos. Wish I could turn it off for bots

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev -2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Because they don't want to take 3 seconds and block the user.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago

I wonder if the same clients that don’t correctly render the collapsed paragraphs also don’t correctly render the block button?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I take it some people see it as a protest at the way their clients misrender the formatting.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 158 points 5 months ago (4 children)
  1. People disagree on the bias bot reporting
  2. People don't like their biases being made visible
  3. People don't realize they have a bias
  4. People find the bot noisy
[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 63 points 5 months ago (18 children)

Someone just told me that it "labels everything short of fascism as 'left-leaning'" and "tries to shift the Overton window" even further right than it already is in the US.

And I suppose that is correct if your idea of the spectrum of normal political opinions is restricted to what you see on Lemmy, especially if your instance hasn't defederated from Hexbear yet.

load more comments (18 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 25 points 5 months ago (8 children)

I wish it looked like your screenshot. On Boost, I get everything folded out, occasionally with unclickable links.

[–] Hayduke@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Dang. I didn't realize how bad Sync is at rendering posts. It's a giant unformatted mess for me as well. That screenshot is a far more tolerable presentation.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments