I hear you.

I’d just offer a slight counter, which is that if the devs want their software to succeed, they should probably work a little harder to police how their politics overflow, or work harder to contain them. And bringing these issues into the full light of day may help with that, or at least convince them to crack down on bad actors they a currently allow to function with impunity.

It’s a good trend, but I still think it would behoove the admin of more reasonable instances to make it more obvious that there is a sizable and aggressive group of people with nearly unlimited (internet) power, and making it clear that they do not associate at all with those instances/individual practices.

There is a huge dearth of naming and shaming bad actors, and it’s going to reach a size where people won’t do their research as I did, but will assume that all of the fediverse is run by authoritarian Communists and (not) engage based on that.

And that wouldn’t be an unfair understanding, given who the creators of Lemmy are, who their disciples/mods are, and their influence across the platform.

Lemmy really runs the risk of being “left wing Truth Social” otherwise.

Thanks for illustrating that I was banned from not just one community I don’t participate in aside from upvoting, but several that I have never even visited. All for “Rule 4,” which as far as I can tell is spamming ads, which I have never done. I’ve tried to message the mods of those communities, but haven’t gotten any kind of response.

It’s really disappointing that this is how Lemmy seems to work. As a new user, I had to actively persevere through the .ml bullshit to understand that lemmy as a whole is not like that. But it’s almost impossible to be a progressive (but not full blown anti-western communist) on an awful lot of this platform.

It really does the other large instances a disservice that those mod/admin practices are so commonplace.

I know the answer is to defederate/block them, but I genuinely find the news and posts interesting, and .ml was one of the instances that I was first looking into, because I literally didn’t understand how the fediverse worked but kept hearing “just pick an instance, there no wrong choice since you have access to all the other instances.”

But even those posts about topics I am educated in and care about, it all just literally seems to be a vessel for a specific type of (dis/mis)information in the comments, which actively preys on the gullible and shuts out even moderately different views.

Edit: mobile formatting fix

Cool interrobang.

We just need a few more to see if there’s a trend.

Yeah, that’s what I mean.

The person I was responding to was comparing it to cum hoc which means that the two events being considered simultaneously, which I don’t think is correct.

In this case, then, it would be pro hoc, since the crankiness comes after the not eating.

Right?

Removed by mod

Woof.

There’s absolutely no difference?

Are you… are you serious?

I said I didn’t have time to give this persons argument the attention it required to engage with it in good faith.

It’s weird that you’re so opposed to open and honest communication in the context of an argument. Doesn’t speak very well about you.

They often state that western sources use less biased language and more often provide evidence, but always acknowledge when they are a part of a government.

Which, by the way, was the gist of my critique of the source that I highlighted in my OP. This news agency is literally funded by governments that are opposed to the US in Syria, and are quoting another Syrian government owned source.

I don’t know what an “Anglo nationalist” even is.

We can talk about how it assesses factuality, but it’s not really relevant to my particular use of MBFC, since I quoted how the media of the OP is funded, which is incredibly relevant.

The existence of op-eds and their content is a useful indicator of where a particular media entity sits. Their editorial standards also reflect the kind of language a source routinely allowed. It’s a good indication of what the outlet is willing to publish.

What is your critique with how it states it samples? It’s a sample of a media source for a qualitative and subjective assessment. I, too would like to know more about how it samples, but I can also see the framework that it follows to assess factuality and confirm or dispute it through a quick look at the headlines and by skimming through some stories, if it seems warranted (though I admit, when it comes to sensationalized headlines and incendiary language, or an obvious government agenda I won’t necessarily do all my due diligence to assess a media source… like I did with the OP).

As for your specific concerns about factuality, you chose some random articles and engaged with them specifically but didn’t link them here, so I’m not going to do your job and go and find the thing you’re talking about.

To your last comment: it’s not always trivial to do the legwork. There is a lot of media out there, and it’s just getting more and more overwhelming. MBFC is just a tool. You have to be aware of the dangers when using a tool. Your critiques are all somewhat valid, but you’re advocating for throwing out a useful tool for media literacy because it’s not perfect.

It’s a lazy argument that requires the other party to do a bunch of work to make your own point.

You just linked a video that you don’t introduce, in a setting you don’t mention, and don’t discuss who the speaker is.

Removed by mod

I’m a critical thinker and student of public policy and global society and political discourse?

I have a deep and lasting dislike of authoritarianism, no matter the political orientation?

I value media literacy and critical thought?

I dislike the exploitative trend of capitalism, it believe that ny ultimate purpose is to use my own privilege to try and soften the blow for humanity in whatever small way I can, thinking globally in scope while emphasizing engagement with my own immediate community?

But really, I’m just weirded out by the attack on critical thought around here, when all I did was question a questionable source. I’m also wondering why the fuck my political orientation is relevant here, and why you think you’re able to condescend to me in such a childish way.

What are you talking about? LLMs have no bearing in this conversation, you brought them up.

Are you saying that you don’t allow people to use tools to evaluate media; and share their reasons for scepticism?

The bit that I quoted from MBFC is factual information (the story’s sponsors and an assessment of reliability), which I used to begin a conversation about the source.

Which upon further discussion was, indeed, ultimately sourced to a Syrian governmental agency, which is then been repeated by various governmental sources. There has not yet been any evidence to support the allegations made by the original source, which supports MBFC assertion that the original news agency does not often provide reliable (by journalistic standards) justification for its news stories. It seems like a really weird idea for you to so vehemently oppose a resource that enables critical thinking.

The news article is an extension of at least one state agency, and there are critiques of its truthfulness. That’s the takeaway from my original comment.

I feel like I’m repeating myself, but I literally cannot fathom a good faith justification for not allowing a widely accepted tool for media literacy to be allowed here. (For clarity, I’m talking about MBFC, not any LLM stuff, which only serves to obfuscates things.)

This is all true, and comes

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

If I’m being honest, I don’t have time to read through all of you other, linked comment, that doesn’t at all contextualize it into this current conversation.

I will try to do that, though, and appreciate the seemingly good faith post that I didn’t see in your other comments.

Edit: you have ranted and offered links to Wikipedia. It’s clear that you don’t know how to use this particular tool, as it’s designed primarily for US media, and adheres to North American and European journalistic standards, with an inherent and sizable bias towards the United States political and media climate.