Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

news.ycombinator.com

1–10 of 163 posts

Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#1
We all know how the election turned out. I believe the internet is contributing to echo chambers because of filter bubbles. I think it is rare to see some news that is not biased one way or another, and I believe it is hard to expect it not to be so, because of our own individual biases. I think there is a need for tools that can help us see the other side.

What if we had a tool that is delivered as a browser extension, that can show links to alternate views (think URL links) of the exact same topic that you are reading? It can use information like how biased the current article is towards different people/events/ideas and find an alternate article that can help you understand other-side. It may not solve all the problems but it would be a good start. Would you find it useful? Do you have a better idea?

This requires skills (NLP/ML) that I don't have but I am willing to spend time/effort (I am a programmer/big-data-engineer) to make it a reality. Would anyone be interested in working on it? It will be open source and any organization that runs this will be non-profit.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#4
post #2

I think the idea is promising but I'm pessimistic that those who need it most would opt-in. It sounds like a valuable project: good luck.

Thanks. It is clear that most organizations don't want to invest effort in doing what is right. If there is some ready-to-use extension/service that is proven to help, maybe we can convince the browser developers to include it in their default installation.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#5
This is a pretty good website and they also have a proprietary algorithm to determine the political spectrum of the source: http://www.allsides.com/

NYTimes is ranked moderately liberal while Fox News is ranked right (http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-ratings)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#6
post #3

It is certainly an interesting idea, and I don't want to discourage you, but how would you reach the people who would benefit from it the most? If you are aware of a filter bubble, you can easily seek out alternative information...

Good point. If it works, maybe we can convince browser developers to include this as default similar to how security is done. We are putting more effort to secure our computers than securing our minds. Even if I were aware of being in a filter bubble, it takes time and effort to get out of that. We need to make it easy.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#7

This is a pretty good website and they also have a proprietary algorithm to determine the political spectrum of the source: http://www.allsides.com/ NYTimes is ranked moderately liberal while Fox News is ranked right ( http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-ratings )

Thanks! It seems interesting. The problem I see is that - it's hard to pull people away from their news sources to something unbiased. We need to take unbiased articles to the people. Also, journals shouldn't be the only source. Every side needs to be heard and someone's voice may come from their own blog. I am not sure how it would work but we should at least give it a try.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#8
I also don't have the skills for building such a thing. But if I could help with such a project through testing/QA, or contributing to a website, or gathering resources - whatever, really - I would, and I would use it. I've been thinking a lot about confirmation bias and echo chambers lately, too, and the truth is I don't know exactly where to look for opposing viewpoints all the time, and it's hard to gather the courage to just dive in when I know a good amount of it will make me feel ill.

Maybe just starting with a collection of opposing resources? There could be a call to action to ask people to submit articles or sources for various "stances" on different topics, and a list divided by topics and view points, or links to the few sane and awesome discussions you can occasionally find where people who think differently actually talk to each other about their differences like rational human beings. That might be an approachable place to start, anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?

#9
I think the tool you need is "skepticism". Teach people to not rush to ascribe labels to everything they don't like, and to stop ignoring anything that has been labeled as X-ist by their bubble. Teach people to not think with slogans and hashtags or listen to celebrities.
Post reply on HN