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

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

#91

Post by dictum »

rando9000 wrote: post #13
harigov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm curious how you think this would work. First of all, I'm interested in what you think a news publication free of bias would look like. Would it be a straight recitation of factual occurrences? That would be useless, right? How would you decide which story gets a big headline? Which detail gets included? Second, the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that there is any such thing as "fact" tha…

> the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that there is any such thing as "fact" that matters

This viewpoint is being thrown around lately, and it's bugging me but I still can't quite explain why. The crowning of this theory was Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year being "post-truth".

I mean, is this pair of articles not an example of "post-truth"?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...

(Bonus: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/upshot/donald-trump-modera...)

It just feels to me like a situation where the same entities who have been conjecturing wildly on thin grounds for years are now shocked that the masses can conjecture wildly too.

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

#92

Post by arkymark »

harigov wrote: post #6
pg314 wrote: 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.

I agree with the comment below about this being a technological solution to a human problem. That said, I'm interested in looking into the NLP/data side of things, and I look forward to how this idea would supplement existing news sources. Keep me posted on the status of this project! :)

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

#93

Post by 551199 »

splawn wrote: post #72
mtberatwork wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, if we do not agree to a common set of facts and a shared reality, how then do we proceed with any kind of meaningful debate? To paint a basic picture, how do you debate the feasibility and merits of sending humans to Mars with a person who denies the moon landings? You might say these are extreme cases, but with the rise and "normalization" of Alex Jones-type media outlets, this will only get worse.

Exactly, when it comes to reality not everybody gets a trophy. Critical thinking and science are waaaay undervalued in our culture.

Reality is lot of the science is wrong as well. Intentionally paid by special interest or the end result is defined before any science is done.

You don't want to look science religiously either.

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

#94

Post by masondixon »

hga wrote: post #85
cableshaft wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes someone Alt Right, if I might ask? I've only heard about it via Facebook and it's being painted as fringe extremist stuff there, but absolutely everyone is crazy on Facebook right now. I'd rather hear it from someone who considers themselves part of it.

One way of viewing it is that it's akin to the original neo-conservatives, who were Communists who lost faith in it. If you remember William Kristol trying to be the anti-Trump leader, his father Irving was one of its founders (note that this is decades before "neo-con" got its current meaning). Lots of us are libertarians or conservatives who've lost faith in those, and are pursuing and defining a new Right that's b…

Wow, as a Trump supporter, I find this really scary ("what the alt right is").

I honestly did not know this is what the Alt Right was purporting to be.

But, this is not what Trump is about. Trump's policies do not reflect your manifesto here.

If you visit The_Donald Reddit, this is what most young Trump supporters are. They are opposed to SJWs, BLM, and third-wave feminists, because they do not think that their actions are helping them achieve their goals, and others just want to make fun of this fact.

The Alt Right certainly does lurk there, and I would say it is a good recruiting ground.

If you click on the Discord button in the sidebar, you will find a default chat room for The_Donald crew where it says "no racist/Nazi shit", but then there are recommendations for places to go for "free-er speech".

This makes me nauseas to think about. I get the feeling very dark places lie beyond here.

Sure, on the other side of the spectrum is the The New Black Panthers, and Communists, but I do feel like the right has scarier extremities.

If Bannon is for the Alt-Right as written in that article, then I am scared as fuck about him in the White House.

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

#95

Post by NumberCruncher »

grzm wrote: post #90
NumberCruncher wrote: post #87

Sorry for the offtopic, but I have to post this evergreen text: >> There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is much better: t…

This just passes the buck to the voters guide. You still have issues of bias and misinformation. You may save a bit by being able to wait to see more information come in, but for some issues, you do want to know what's going on right now so you can act.

Did you read the post I linked in? It's says that the incoming information aka. news are irrelevant to our life and we should just ignore them. There are no real issues you have to act on. If a hurricane is coming, you will know it without reading the news.

Therefore bias and misinformation are also irrelevant to our life.

Just to have a counterpoint to this news obsessed discussion.

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

#96

Post by grzm »

japanese_donald wrote: post #23

How do you actually do this without being biased yourself? One person's reality is another person's bias.

Similar to how science works. Build it with the fact that you have bias in mind, and keep your mind open to criticism, keep testing the system as best you can to test whether it's susceptible to any kind of bias you can think of, and remember it's always going to be an open question. Healthy skepticism. Keeping the work in the open is pretty important, too.

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

#97

Post by grzm »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #95
grzm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just passes the buck to the voters guide. You still have issues of bias and misinformation. You may save a bit by being able to wait to see more information come in, but for some issues, you do want to know what's going on right now so you can act.

Did you read the post I linked in? It's says that the incoming information aka. news are irrelevant to our life and we should just ignore them. There are no real issues you have to act on. If a hurricane is coming, you will know it without reading the news. Therefore bias and misinformation are also irrelevant to our life. Just to have a counterpoint to this news obsessed discussion.

Yes, I did read the post you linked to. I am also responding to the quote you provided. I should think that you quoted it because you thought it was particularly relevant or representative, did you not?

Edited to add: I also found it frustrating that a post arguing against reading the news includes a "You should follow me on twitter here" link at the bottom.

Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#98

Post by masondixon »

rando9000 wrote: post #13
harigov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm curious how you think this would work. First of all, I'm interested in what you think a news publication free of bias would look like. Would it be a straight recitation of factual occurrences? That would be useless, right? How would you decide which story gets a big headline? Which detail gets included? Second, the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that there is any such thing as "fact" tha…

> when Rightist positions conflict with reality

This election proved liberal bias in the mainstream media. They did not see this election result coming, and they admit it. This is not just the polls, it is the articles, the choice of front-page stories, when to release feature stories, what headlines to use, etc. They know that all their friends are liberal. All their staff is liberal. The NYT Editorial Board is all liberal, and have pretty much always endorsed a liberal candidate.

This new thing of "fact-checking" is terrible. Fact-checkers rely on making assumptions. There is a ton of judgement calls made in evaluating something. They are just another source of journalism. They are not an arbiter on truth.

They change between the literal meaning and the metaphorical meaning depending on what suits their agenda.

If they stuck to the exact words and dictionary definitions for all, then this would be consistent, and would be better.

But then they also get to choose which "facts" to evaluate. "Trump has lied X more times than Hillary according to fact checkers" was a very common retort from Dems - but is utterly meaningless.

:)

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

#99

Post by hga »

masondixon wrote: post #94
hga wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way of viewing it is that it's akin to the original neo-conservatives, who were Communists who lost faith in it. If you remember William Kristol trying to be the anti-Trump leader, his father Irving was one of its founders (note that this is decades before "neo-con" got its current meaning). Lots of us are libertarians or conservatives who've lost faith in those, and are pursuing and defining a new Right that's b…

Wow, as a Trump supporter, I find this really scary ("what the alt right is"). I honestly did not know this is what the Alt Right was purporting to be. But, this is not what Trump is about. Trump's policies do not reflect your manifesto here. If you visit The_Donald Reddit, this is what most young Trump supporters are. They are opposed to SJWs, BLM, and third-wave feminists, because they do not think that their actio…

Vox Day's "philosophy", it's not really mine, that's still inchoate. And not much of a manifesto "a public declaration of policy and aims", it's more principles than policies to achieve those, except the essential ones like no "noble and principled defeat". One of the reasons we're so dangerous, sort of like Reagan, the first US president who decided to end instead of "contain" the Soviet Union. Or in some of my recent readings, why Washington was considered to be so dangerous a general by the British.

As for Trump's policies/philosophy, well, I've outlined how some of them do align, and he's certainly kryptonite to movement conservatives and the GOPe that pretends to be conservative. On the other hand, he's pro-legal immigrant, and that's very much not of the Alt Right, we think that'll lead to Enoch Powells' "Rivers of Blood" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Riv...) and we'd very much like to avoid that for obvious reasons (and note I'm not just talking about white vs. other identity group conflicts, Latin Americans, Asians, blacks, they don't exactly get along very well, do they?)

As for Trump's younger supporters, well, they're young, you need certain conditions, like "being mugged by reality" or just being old enough to collect enough data on all this, to come to these sorts of conclusions. I think having a family also helps, if you're responsible, you start thinking a lot more of what's down the road, and realize there's a whole bunch of cans which will eventually not be amenable to being kicked down it any further.

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