Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker bot?

otp@sh.itjust.works to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 347 points –

I know MediaBiasFactCheck is not a be-all-end-all to truth/bias in media, but I find it to be a useful resource.

It makes sense to downvote it in posts that have great discussion -- let the content rise up so people can have discussions with humans, sure.

But sometimes I see it getting downvoted when it's the only comment there. Which does nothing, unless a reader has rules that automatically hide downvoted comments (but a reader would be able to expand the comment anyways...so really no difference).

What's the point of downvoting? My only guess is that there's people who are salty about something it said about some source they like. Yet I don't see anyone providing an alternative to MediaBiasFactCheck...

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Yeah, it's just owned by one dude named Dave, funded mainly through user donations.

Oh because that's better?

Uh, yea, actually. When people complain about corporations, they're worried about how shareholders, who have no actual emotional or long-term attachment to their ownership of the company, have no real incentive to actually do things in any sort of ethical, or even long-term healthy way.

If they're just going to sell their shares someday, why should they care?

If someone is working on a project of their own, it's much more possible for it to be a passion project, where they care about more than simple short term profitability. You're just more likely to encounter ethical behavior once that fiduciary duty to shareholder profits above all else is removed.

See that's funny though because it's just the other extreme. One guy is rating thousands of websites by himself?

Although we know that's not the case. Their website says there's a team.

Well, sure, it's always going to be run somehow. Things do tend to be owned by people in our system. You could say it should be a nonprofit if you wanted, that'd be fair.

And yes, I'd expect a single person would be unable to handle the workload. In addition to reading and fact checking, there's also the admin stuff, where someone has to run the website, handle expenses, shit like that.

Yes people to help the disinformation.

Uh huh. I think you just like far left propaganda. Your willingness to just whine in vague, general terms about everything without offering anything substantial in the way of criticism sort of betrays you as just participating in some sort of brigading-type thing.

Oh there's been plenty of substantial criticism, with examples. If you're not seeing them in this comment section it's because you don't want to.

I was just talking about our conversation. "Conservative!" "Corporation!" "Opposite of a corporation!" "Has a team!"

Not particularly substantial stuff. I did see your other, much better comment in here, and left a reply.

Good, now you know half of where it's coming from. Keep looking around the comment section.

Yeah, I'd rather not. Some interaction with you is plenty, you're very trolly.