Where’s the critique coming from? The Wiki seems to have nothing but positive things to say. Might be an error. Ironic.
Scientific studies[23] using its ratings note that ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check show high agreement with an independent fact checking dataset from 2017,[8] with NewsGuard[9] and with BuzzFeed journalists.[10] When MBFC factualness ratings of ‘mostly factual’ or higher were compared to an independent fact checking dataset’s ‘verified’ and ‘suspicious’ news sources, the two datasets showed “almost perfect” inter-rater reliability.
It’s from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Media_Bias/Fact_Check
There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site’s ratings.
I think the perennial sources list gets a lot more attention than the wiki page for MBFC itself, and probably the standards for judging it reliable are higher.
I read that. My best guess is that this is either an error that hasn’t been updated in light of empirical studies corroborating MBFC’s reliability, or more likely any self-published list gets the “unreliable” sticker automatically.
Also, making claims about “a consensus” without sourcing these claims is mighty suspicious. Disappointed.
They’re saying the parts mbfc uses other data from is fine, like the fact checking matching others as they all use the same source. But the rest like bias can’t be trusted as it’s just their own unscientific methods.
Personally, I’m just extremely irked that they refer to Wikipedia as “Wiki” when 1. that’s not a proper noun 2. WP is right there
(don’t swat my house with a slideshow, matt mullenweg, pretty please)
What does it say? I blocked that stupid bot ages ago.
They added a line to the bot that includes Wikipedia’s stance on a source. And Wikipedia doesn’t consider MBFC to be reliable, so the bot reports that.
If you scroll below that, MBFC rates themselves as maximally reliable, which I’m sure is based off of a rigorous and completely neutral assessment.
Edit: although, reading the links in question they don’t seem to correspond to what the bot is saying. Perhaps this is some sort of mistake in how it was coded.
It’s not a mistake, just confusing UX. The text in question comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBFC
It doesn’t though. Or at least, I didn’t see anything resembling that on that page. If you can find it, let me know. It’s possible I missed it.
The post links both The Guardian and MBFC. The bot has picked up both links and posted the following (verbatim):
Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:
Wiki: unreliable - There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site’s ratings.
MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for The Guardian:
Wiki: reliable - There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian’s op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics. See also: The Guardian blogs.
Wiki: mixed - Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight. Check the bottom of the article for a “blogposts” tag to determine whether the page is a blog post or a non-blog article. See also: The Guardian.
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
Interestingly enough, Wikipedia’s sourcing list counts Wikipedia as unreliable. It says you need to find information somewhere else so as not to create a self-referential loop. You have to justify it from a solid source that’s outside the system.
MBFC says that MBFC is incredibly reliable, and incidentally also tends to mark sources down if their biases don’t agree with MBFC’s existing biases, which are significant. It needs no outside sources, because it’s already reliable.
Good stuff.
It hurt itself in its confusion