The report documents how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza has decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that will have lasting health impacts. By early 2024, over 25,000 tons of explosives—equivalent to two nuclear bombs—had been dropped on Gaza, causing massive destruction and the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation, and toxic pollution.

I knew it was a lot but the equivalent of 2 nukes really puts it into perspective.

Biden has had literally all the evidence you could need to trigger the Leahy Laws and stop the arms shipments but has been complicit in this the entire time.

Lmao yes famous things leftists ask for like:

1. Stating your difference from Biden would be to have a republican in your cabinet.
2. Campaigning with Liz Cheney.
3. Enacting the rights border policies.
4. Walking back a commitment to ban fracking.
5. Walking back support for Medicare 4 All
6. Walking back support for the green new deal.
7. Supplying and funding the genocide leftists and Arab voters explicitly wanted stopped.

They can’t even blame third party voters this time around because from the current tallies it wouldn’t have made a difference.

They didn’t activate what should be their base enough and instead tried to court neocons and these mythical moderate republicans that would abandon trump in swaths for a righter wing democrat (hint: they will always prefer the actual republican).

If the democratic leadership takes this result as anything but an indictment of their attempt to abandon popular left policies to become the Republicans of 20 years ago they are hopeless. I’m not holding my breath though.

Not really, if you read my other comment they’re actual journalists that have a solid history of good reporting.

They started this spin off of the intercept project relatively recently so that’s probably why.

Not sure on the down votes but my guess is that you mentioned the media bias sites and people would rather you come to your own conclusions based on the sources history kinda like you ended up doing by looking up the creators instead of relying on those sites.

I personally stopped interacting with the .worlds world news community after they forced the clearly biased mb/fc bot on everyone despite a lot of complaints.

On the about section of drop site news page:

Founded by Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and veterans of The Intercept.

Feel free to look them up they do good work.

I know you’ve been getting downvotes but just wanted to say thank you for voting PSL!

Going to add this report from Amnesty International back in 2009 showing Israel is the one using human shields

Like I kinda said in my last paragraphs you’ve got fair points that it may be good enough for what it’s being used for here (despite it’s clear biases) since it’s not being used to disallow posts. Although other commenters have said it has a pro-Zionist bias as well which is honestly more concerning than things I’ve pointed out. Haven’t had time to check beyond the ADL one.

Overall my main issue is the community wasn’t really asked if one was desired, which one should be used, how it should be used, etc. Because of that and the lack of good response by the poster I’ve already decided to follow other world news communities instead of this one.

Thank you! I know they only recently spun off from the intercept with this, so I believe a website is on the way but will try not to post from here until then unless it’s some unique reporting I’m not seeing on any actual websites.

I think the importance of American bias is overstated. What matters is that they’re transparent about it. That bias also impacts the least important thing they track.

It affects the overall credibility rating of the source, how is that the least important thing? They also seem to let it affect the factual reporting rating despite not clearly stating that in the methodology.

Based on MBFC’s [methodology](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/), it’s actually impossible for editorial bias alone to impact the credibility rating without having additional problems

This is only true specifically when you’re thinking about it as a great source can’t have its credibility rating lowered. A not great factual source can get a high credibility rating if it’s deemed centrist enough which again is arbitrary based on the (effectively) 1 guys personal opinion.

High Credibility Score Requirement: 6

Example 1

Factual Reporting Mixed: 1

No left/right bias: 3

Traffic High: 2

Example 2

Factual Reporting Mostly Factual: 2

No left/right bias: 3

Traffic Medium: 1

See how weighing credibility on a (skewed) left/right bias metric waters this down? Both of these examples would get high credibility.

On top of that, none of this impacts this community at all. It could be a problem if the standard here was ‘highest’ ratings exclusively, but it isn’t.

That’s a fair point and I did state in my original post that despite my own feelings I’d be open to something like this if the community had been more involved in the process of choosing one/deciding one is necessary and also if we had the bots post clearly call out it’s biases, maybe an explanation of its methodology and the inherent risks in it.

The way it’s been pushed from the mod first without polling the community and seeing the reaction to criticism some of which was constructive is my main issue here really.

I’m not going to die on the intercept hill here I’m fine with the fact that even though they fired the person it’s a stain on their record so sure let’s say that rating is fine.

It was one of the first 3 I checked so I’m sure I’ll find more that are problematic when I have a chance to look because it’s their methodology that’s biased. Also the other 2 I pointed out are clearly not correct.

Got rebuttals for any of my criticisms about the methodology?

What you’re basically saying, perhaps without realizing it, is that bias ratings shouldn’t be given at all.

What I’m saying is that on a world news community we shouldn’t be using a US based left/right. What that should be should be voted on by the community if the mods insist we need to have some sort of fact checker like this which I disagree is needed.

I don’t know why FAIR is being rated as “High” instead of “Very High” by MB/FC but I don’t see this as some kind of overwhelming issue. The Intercept ranking has an explanation in the report and you should read it but it comes down to the fact that they’re known to only cover certain stories, they’re known to repress journalists, and they’ve been previously caught with writers that were making stuff up. Despite all of that they’re still being rated “mostly factual”, so again I’m not seeing this as an overwhelming issue.

The reason FAIR doesn’t is because MB/FC downgrades sources if it (arbitrarily based on the US right skewed Overton window) decides a source is left/right bias even if there has never been a failed fact check. For The intercept it was literally 1 reporter and they retracted all bogus statements, I could see that being 2nd rating then.

Again the 3 sources I mentioned we’re literally the first 3 I checked, it’s not a small issue with MB/FC it’s the fact that the methodolgy downgrades the factual rating if the source isn’t as centrist as the (effectively) 1 guy that runs the website wants the source to be. What number of incorrect ratings would make you decide this is a terrible checker? Cause with some time I’m sure I could come up with any reasonable target given.

So the ADL is ranked the same as FAIR. Seems consistent. You’re also overstating the Wikipedia article, Wikipedia only considers them unreliable on the Palestinian Conflict. The ADL is still perfectly fine (with them) for other things.

Didn’t overstate I specifically mentioned twice what it was basing that off of. Also I don’t see how that would be consistent when 1 source has never failed a fact check and the other has been deemed unreliable on both the Palestinian conflict and on anti-sentism. How should both of those be the same rating?

There probably isn’t a fact checker out there that’s going to be perfect and also free but that doesn’t mean we shoehorn a crappy one in here without putting massive disclaimers clearly calling out the biases it has.

Again left/right based on the website creators definition of those words which is going to be biased.

If they omit information then you can fact check that. Automatically downgrading factuality because they’re not considered centrist by the website arbitrary definition that’s based on the USs skewed view of left and right isn’t objective in anyway.

The fact that their methodology downgrades factual rankings if they (arbitrarily) deem a source left/right bias even if they’ve never failed a fact check shows how terrible it is.

They give the ADL which Wikipedia has deemed unreliable their 2nd highest ranking shows even their fact checking isn’t good.

I wont disagree that there should be a ranking for using loaded language but combining it with the factuality ranking twists what the ranking means since to the average person they’re going to read that as how accurate the facts are.

It should be its own separate rating from factuality. Again if we’re going to have to have a bot like this put clear disclaimers and ideally find a better one than this.

Wrote this over on the announcement post for this bot:

Just looking over the methodology it’s clear that it has it’s own biases:

American Bias

The website itself says it’s distinctions of left and right are US based which is very skewed from the rest of the world. There should be a disclaimer or it shouldn’t be used in any world news communities.

Centrist Bias

The website follows the idea of “enlightened centrism” since if it determines a website has a left/right lean (again arbitrary) it affects the factual ratings of the sources.

Examples of this are: FAIR only getting the 2nd highest rating despite never having failed a fact check.

The Intercept getting only a “mostly factual” rating (3rd highest) despite their admittance it has never failed a fact check.

Despite my personal opinions on the pointlessness of using a US based left/right bias criteria I’d feel better if it was at least kept it it’s own section but when you allow it to affect the factual rating of the source it’s just outright wrong. The factual accuracy of the website should be the sole thing that affects this rating.

Questionable Fact Checking

Even just checking some of their ratings raises doubts on the websites credibility.

The ADL is rated as high (2nd highest) and wasn’t found to fail any fact checks.

The ADL was found to be so unreliable on it’s reporting of the Israel-Palestine conflict it is considered an unreliable source by Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism.”

Maybe Wikipedia editors are a good arbiter of truth and maybe they aren’t but as people can see there isn’t a consensus and so by choosing Media Bias/Fact Check you’re explicitly choosing to align your “truth” with this websites biases.

As the other poster says we don’t need to have something like this at all.

If you’re adamant about it then make a post where people can suggest which one we use and vote on it. We can also adjust the bots comment to clearly call out the chosen ones biases and methodology. As it is now it’s actively harmful as I mention in my other comment.

I think having this post isn’t a great idea because you are just assuming the websites bias are legit. At the very least there needs to be a lot of warnings in the bots post about the websites biases and the methodology they use so the reader can come to their own conclusion.

Just looking over the methodlogy it’s clear that it has it’s own biases:

American Bias

The website itself says it’s distinctions of left and right are US based which is very skewed from the rest of the world. There should be a disclaimer or it shouldn’t be used in any world news communities.

Centrist Bias

The website follows the idea of “enlightened centrism” since if it determines a website has a left/right lean (again arbitrary) it affects the factual ratings of the sources.

Examples of this are: FAIR only getting the 2nd highest rating despite never having failed a fact check.

The Intercept getting only a “mostly factual” rating (3rd highest) despite their admittance it has never failed a fact check.

Despite my personal opinions on the pointlessness of using a US based left/right bias criteria I’d feel better if it was at least kept it it’s own section but when you allow it to affect the factual rating of the source it’s just outright wrong. The factual accuracy of the website should be the sole thing that affects this rating.

Questionable Fact Checking

Even just checking some of their ratings raises doubts on the websites credibility.

The ADL is rated as high (2nd highest) and wasn’t found to fail any fact checks.

The ADL was found to be so unreliable on it’s reporting of the Israel-Palestine conflict it is considered an unreliable source by Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism.”

Maybe Wikipedia editors are a good arbiter of truth and maybe they aren’t but as people can see there isn’t a consensus and so by choosing Media Bias/Fact Check you’re explicitly choosing to align your “truth” with this websites biases.

Since other commenters aren’t bothering to look into it at all:

Cuba says it has disrupted a scheme in Russia to recruit Cuban citizens to fight in Ukraine.

In a statement, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry called the alleged plan a human trafficking ring. It said Cubans, both in Russia and on the island, had been recruited to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Cuba is actively trying to prevent this.