this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024

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News

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[META] MBFC bot (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

125 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The news mod team has asked to no longer be a part of the project until we have a composite tool that polls multiple sources for a more balanced view.

It will take a few hours, but FOR NOW there won't be a bot giving reviews of the source.

The goal was simple: make it easier to show biased sources. This was to give you and the mods a better view of what we were looking at.

The mod team is in agreement: one source of truth isn't enough. We are working on a tool to give a composite score, from multiple sources, all open source.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm absolutely for the bot and I know I'm not alone. I like having it and I find it useful. I don't know why other people think it's "a source of truth" like I'm some mindless sheep who can't think on my own. I can and do take its rating with a grain of salt.

I don't like sports but you don't see me asking admins to remove those subs. It's selfish of people to ask for it to take it down for everyone. A good aspect of using Lemmy is being able to customize your experience--so do that. If you don't like bots, hide them all in the settings or block them individually. It's that simple.

Now that I think of it, maybe Lemmy should ask new users how they want to experience the site when creating their accounts.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I liked it. Even a biased MBFC that is consistent in it's bias has value, as you can take the bias into perspective on interpreting the rating.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Honestly; I think the "Negative" reactions to the bot are overblown and only done by a vocal minority who are sockpuppeting followed by a few people who are irrationally angry that the bot can be, GASP! Dare I SAY IT???!!11, Wrong.

Personally I don't find the bot problematic at all; and I think it could easily be blocked or ignored by people who find it too inaccurate. So I find it extremely disappointing that the mods are listening to the vocal minority about this.

That being said; I do understand why Mods want to make the bot more accurate. It's assessments and information can easily make obvious extremists and trolls more obvious to the naked eye; and can help people consume media with some grains of salt. More sources of data are good for accuracy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sockpuppetting? You have any indication of that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (12 children)

We do. Admins found dozens of downvote alts and nuked them at the same time. Seems folks aren't content to just state their opinion and leave it at that, and instead they feel compelled to overwhelm the system to give the illusion of uniformity.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anyone who disagrees with me is a bot!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What point does a "bias" bot serve if it can be incorrect? And if it can be incorrect then why should we trust it at all?

You may as well write a bot that posts "remember, don't trust everything you read online and use critical thinking when you're doing your own research" to every post.

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

The question is how much is it incorrect? Because the bot isn't AI or anything. MBFC's database is used in research and has been compared with other independent sources and deemed reputable enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Citation needed

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

our results suggest that there is substantial agreement across different sources of domain quality ratings, and that aggregated domain ratings provide a useful tool for advancing misinformation research.

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/9/pgad286/7258994

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Your source:

Domain ratings may not be as accurate as fact-checking individual pieces of content

You know -- like a stupid bot writing useless bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

but they offer a convenient tool for evaluating the efficacy of antimisinformation interventions

Also my source. You know, when used like a person with more than two brain cells would. Instead of nit-picking at the bot, why don't we look at the bigger picture for the value it provides?

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

Honestly, the bias piece was never the important piece for us. It was the credibility piece.

Just trying to give some insight into why we used it in this community.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Then you understand the negative reactions. Especially regarding controversial topics such as Gaza where the bot preferred sources on one side to the conflict

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So if it's still showing up what does that mean?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

the admin who manages the bot hasn't had a chance to disable it for our community yet.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What if they say no to turning it off?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just FYI, they agreed

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They said they would when they get to a computer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But what if they never get to a computer??? 😬

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Somebody find Sarah Connor! Skynet is behind this.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No one wants a bot.

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

I do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Ditto

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why do you insist on fixing the bot instead of directing your energy elsewhere? Fixing the media bias bot to not have any bias is a fool's errand.

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

The last sticky thread actually had some really good feedback, like using a fact checker that is part of the International Fact Checking Network (of which MBFC is not a member) and many other similarly great suggestions.

One of the issues might be in the name. We don’t want to create a bias bot. That seems like a fool’s errand, which is one thing we learned in the process of implementing the MBFC bot. We want to create something that makes people aware of posts that are from medium to low quality sources. Obviously, if the source is super sketchy, we’d delete it, but there’s a lot of grey area where we leave things up.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Mods should take note that this is how you listen to community feedback. Some actual learning is happening here, instead of doubling down we saw in the other thread

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The other thread was an attempt to gauge feedback on specific ideas (as this post mentions, they are so in the works) and it precipitated this post

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The other thread started from the assumption that the bot is useful and here to stay, even though the overwhelming feedback has been that it sucks and should be removed. It was a transparent attempt to increase support for it instead of an honest attempt at feedback. People still gave their feedback, of course, that the stupid bot should be put out to pasture.

At least now we're seeing the bot is gone until improvements are made, the bias stuff is gone, the bot shouldn't even appear except in select cases. That's totally different than what they're saying in the other thread.

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

We have been discussing the content of that feedback for about a week now, both with the broader moderator/admin community and within this team, and since most of us aren't online at the same time (we have jobs) it takes a few days for the whole team to see and respond to opinions. Given that many of us disagreed on the best path forward, we had to come to a workable consensus. We have now acted on that feedback in accordance with the wishes of the community, so your claim that we had no intention to do so is significantly off the mark.

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