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…
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…
To express dissatisfaction.
There’s a lot of people that view the MBFC reports as themselves being biased, and to be fair, their process for generating the reports are opaque as fucking hell so we have no way to know how biased or not they are.
it’s also kinda spammy, and- IMO- not really all that useful.
Why do you say they’re opaque? They detail the history of the publication, the ownership, their analysis of bias within their reporting, and give examples of failed fact checks. I’m not sure what else you could want about how a publication is rated? I’m not saying it’s perfect, but they seem to be putting a solid effort into explaining how they arrive at the ratings they give.
Because their methodology is nothing but buzzwords:
The primary aim of our methodology is to systematically evaluate the ideological leanings and factual accuracy of media and information outlets. This is achieved through a multi-faceted approach that incorporates both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments in accordance with our rigorously defined criteria.
Despite apparently having “rigorously defined criteria”, they don’t actually say what they are.
They literally publish their methodology and scoring system.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/
So they do say exactly what their criteria is, and how it is scored. None of that is buzz words, it’s just a summary that fit in a few sentences. You can look at the full methodology if you want more than just that small bullet description.
I’m not saying that you have to agree with their scoring, or that it is necessarily accurate. I just think if you’re going to critique a thing, you should at least know what you’re critiquing.
Bravo for bringing the notes. On a first glance, some of these feel like they require subjectivity (like, do we really believe the political spectrum is 1d?), but I agree I could run the computation myself from this.
There is definitely some subjectivity. Language isn’t something that is easily parsed and scored. That is why they give examples on the actual report about the kind of biased language they saw, or whatever other issues led to the score given.
I don’t think they mean for their website to be the end all bias resource. More of a stepping off point for you to make your own judgments.
It’s crucial to note that our bias scale is calibrated to the political spectrum of the United States, which may not align with the political landscapes of other nations.
But what even is this false left-right, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican one-dimensional scale? The first thing they state on this page is that all this is inherently subjective. Who is MBFC to determine where the middle of this scale exists? If people want to seek out their opinion, that’s fine, but this is inherently a subjective opinion about what constitutes “left center” vs “center,” for example. I don’t get how MBFC deserves their opinion on every news post.
Also the formatting of the bot is awful as displayed on most Lemmy apps. On mine it’s a giant wall of text. Other posts/bots don’t look bad, just this one.
They cover what they consider left and right. This way you can judge whether it aligns with what you believe. And it allows you to interpret their results even if they don’t follow the same spectrum you do.
And if you know of a way to discuss political spectrum without subjectivity I would love to hear it. Even if you don’t use a 2d spectrum, it’s still subjective. Just subjective with additional criteria.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left-vs-right-bias-how-we-rate-the-bias-of-media-sources/
And if you know of a way to discuss political spectrum without subjectivity I would love to hear it.
Of course that doesn’t exist, my point is why does this specific subjective opinion get promoted on here?
Why does any opinion get promoted on here? Because somebody posted it. And then there is a voting system and comments for people to express their agreement or disagreement.
I honestly don’t care either way if the bot exists. I just think it’s silly that people are claiming that MBFC is terrible based on basically nothing. You can disagree with how they define left vs right, or what their ratings are, but they are pretty transparent about how their system works. And no one has given any example of how it could be done better.
Oh look. You copied my link!
Sorry. No they don’t.
That’s not “rigorously defined”. It’s a bunch of weasel words and vagaries.
For example. In “factual reporting”, to get a “very high” score:
A source with a “Very High” rating is consistently factual, relies on credible information, promptly corrects errors, and has never failed any fact checks in news reporting or opinion pieces.
What does “consistently factual” mean? What qualifies as “a credible source”? What does “prompt” mean?
Those are all nice sounding words, but they don’t really tell you anything. Prompt could be anything from seconds to weeks. (And let’s be honest, probably varies from researcher to researcher.)
Oh they go into more detail….
A questionable source, for example:
Questionable sources display extreme bias, propaganda, unreliable sourcing, or a lack of transparency. They may also engage in disseminating fake news for profit or influence. Such sources are generally unreliable and require fact-checking on an article-by-article basis. A source lacking transparency in mission, ownership, or authorship is automatically categorized as questionable. Additionally, sources from countries with significant government censorship are also deemed questionable.
Who defines their extreme bias? What is propaganda?
Voice of America is literally a government ran propaganda service yet they assign it high factual, least-biased and high credibility.
Sorry, but their methodology isn’t a methodology, and the only thing that’s inherently reproducible is their fact check rating. Everything else relies on what their subjective analysis.
Consistently factual is exactly that. Both of those words mean actual things. And they go on to say that they can’t fail fact checks. And prompt corrections likely means that as a story develops, that if there were incorrect things reported, they are corrected as soon as the new information is available.
As for who defines extreme bias, it’s literally them. That is what they are saying they are doing. And they spell out what their left vs right criteria are. And how they judge it. Of course this is subjective. There isn’t really a way to judge the political spectrum without subjectivity. They do include examples in their reports about what biased language, sources, or reporting they found. Which allows you to easily judge whether you agree with it.
As for VOA, they say in the ownership portion that it is funded by the US government and that some view it as a propaganda source. They also discuss the history and purpose of it being founded. And then continue on with the factual accuracy and language analysis. You may not agree with it, but it is following their own methodology, and fully explained in the report.
Again, there isn’t anything saying you have to agree with them. It is a subjective rating. I’m not sure how much more transparent they can be though. They have spelled out how they grade, and each report provides explanations and examples that allow you to make your own judgments. Or a starting point for your own research.
If you can define a completely objective methodology to judge political bias on whatever spectrum you choose, then please do. It’s inherently subjective. And there isn’t really a way around that.
Consistently factual is exactly that.
So what constitutes “consistently factual”, then? if the ‘consistently factual’ means ‘always factual’, then the explanation of allowing ‘prompt corrections’ is unnecessary. A “correction” is different than an “update”, after all. so what rate of error is “rigorously” defined here?
Further, how do they deal with (the vast majority) of fact checkers, using qualified language like “mostly factual” or “misleading” or “out of context”. or “distorted”?
… And prompt corrections likely means that as a story develops, that if there were incorrect things reported, they are corrected as soon as the new information is available.
“likely…” They don’t say that. I wonder why they don’t just say that?
You’re assuming that’s what “prompt” means, but that’s… an assumption. as I said, it could be anything from seconds to weeks. I assume- i don’t know, lets just be honest here- that their language is intentional. which means it’s probably not that.
Seems like it would be a super easy thing to actually define. Like. ‘Consistently Factual’ could be “No more than X percentage of articles requiring corrections or otherwise failing a 3rd party fact check”.
… Of course this is subjective. There isn’t really a way to judge the political spectrum without subjectivity. They do include examples in their reports about what biased language, sources, or reporting they found. Which allows you to easily judge whether you agree with it.
So glad we agree on that.
As for VOA, they say in the ownership portion that it is funded by the US government and that some view it as a propaganda source. They also discuss the history and purpose of it being founded. And then continue on with the factual accuracy and language analysis. You may not agree with it, but it is following their own methodology, and fully explained in the report.
Compare, VOA’s to Al Jazeera’s. Which, Al Jazeera is Qatar-owned. even so, It’s widely considered a reliable news source; where as, VOA was literally forbidden from being served within the US borders precisely because it was propaganda, until 2013- when it decided to open up drops to the internet specifically to “counter” Al Qaeda messaging. (aka. propaganda.)
VOA:
Founded in 1942, Voice of America (VOA) is a United States government-funded multimedia news source and the official external broadcasting institution of the United States. VOA provides programming for broadcasts on radio, TV, and the Internet outside of the U.S., in English and some foreign languages. Some consider the Voice of America to be a form of pro-USA propaganda. However, VOA journalists are governed by its Best Practices Guide, which says that “The accuracy, quality, and credibility of the Voice of America are its most important assets, and they rest on the audiences’ perception of VOA as an objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information.”
Surveys show that 84% of VOA’s audiences trust VOA to provide accurate and reliable information. A similar percentage (84%) say that VOA helps them understand current events relevant to their lives. VOA is produced in 47 languages.
it should be noted that A), its so nice to know that their journalists are held to a standard. (I’m sure Al Jazeera journalists aren’t…) and b) that there’s a survey saying 84% of people that actually look at VOA is reliable. A survey conducted by… their board of governors… and the linked source is the appropriations PDF…
Compared to Al Jazeera:
Founded in 1996, Al Jazeera is an international news network owned by Qatar’s state through the Qatar Media Corporation. It is headquartered in Doha, Qatar. You can view their history timeline here and see Al Jazeera America’s leadership here. Dr. Mostefa Souag is currently Acting Director-General of the Al Jazeera Media Network.
now, I’m not saying Al Jazeera isn’t Qatari propaganda, it more or less is. but you see the the totally different tone here?
Now lets move onto the bias/analysis section. VOA:
In review, VOA presents the USA and world news from a United States perspective. There is minimal use of loaded language in news stories such as this: Officials Hope for Strife-Free Trump Visit to London and this Pompeo Seeks Common Ground on Iran, Huawei in Europe. Both of these stories are sourced from official videos or credible sources. Some stories tend to lean slightly left through portraying President Trump negatively, such as this: Trump Unleashes Again on Special Counsel Who Didn’t Charge Him. When it comes to science, the VOA follows the consensus model and therefore is pro-science.
Voice of America has been called a propaganda arm of the US Government, and perhaps it was at the start. Today, it is a straightforward journalism outfit that might lean slightly left but is mostly least biased on a whole
Emphasis mine (also the italics just to make the headlines clear.) Now the emphasised bits is straight up bullshit. it’s government funded. It’s entire purpose- even today- is to disseminate pro-US propaganda everywhere outside the US. it’s forbiden from radio broadcasts that might reach US soil, and it’s only allowed to drop things on the interent because of a special provision specifically to counter messaging by terrorists.
Factual or not, it’s a propaganda outlet.
Al Jazeera:
In review, Al Jazeera reports news with minimally loaded wording in their headlines and articles such as this: UN approves team to monitor ceasefire in Yemen’s port city, and Erdogan delays Syria operation, welcomes US troop withdrawal. Both of these articles are properly sourced from credible news agencies. When reporting USA news, there is minimal bias in reporting such as this: Pentagon chief Mattis quits, cites policy differences with Trump. In general, straight news reporting has a minimal bias; however, as a state-funded news agency, Al Jazeera is typically not critical of Qatar.
Al Jazeera also has an opinion page that exhibits significant bias against Israel. In this article, the author uses highly negative emotional words as evidenced by this quote: “Europe is increasingly sharing Israel’s racist approach to border security and adopting its deadly technologies.” This article, however, is properly sourced from credible media outlets. Another article, “How many more ways can Israel sentence Palestinians to death?” also uses loaded language that is negative toward Israel. Further, the opinion page does not favor US President Donald Trump through this article: ‘Barbed wire-plus‘: Borders know no love. In general, opinion pieces are routinely biased against Israel and right-wing ideologies.
In 2017, Al Jazeera aired an investigative report of Britain’s Israel lobby. Following the airing, Ofcom (the UK government-approved regulatory and competition authority) received complaints from many pro-Israeli British activists, including one former Israeli embassy employee. They were accused of anti-Semitism, bias, unfair editing, and infringement of privacy, which was later cleared by Ofcom, who said the piece was not anti-semitic and was, in fact, investigative journalism. Later, a US version of the documentary called “Lobby” was not aired due to pressure from US Legislators pushing for Al Jazeera to register as a foreign entity and therefore labeling its journalists as ‘spies.’ Further, Saudi Arabia and three other Arab nations demanded Qatar to shut down Al-Jazeera. Al Jazeera rebuts the accusations here.
now, VOA’s review is easily seen as pure spin. MBFC goes out of their way to assauge any doubt what so ever that they’re factual and not biased. nop. no sir. Now, it would be fair to say that because they literally define bias using the US discourse as the meter stick… that there is no bias. Sort of chicken and the egg, right? any how… there’s no mention of Al Jazeera’s code of ethics… and the cited failed fact checks? date to 2018, one of which falls outside the 5 year window since it was last updated- the fact check was published august of 2018, when it was updated in October of 2023. Pedantic, I know, but the 5 year window is their rule.
all it takes is a five minute scroll through VOA to see that they have the same misleading bias towards the US/US government as Al Jazeera has towards Qatar.
VOA’s was last updated in… Nov 2022.
If you can define a completely objective methodology to judge political bias on whatever spectrum you choose, then please do. It’s inherently subjective. And there isn’t really a way around that.
you don’t need to define something that’s not subjective, exactly. But they need to explain what the methodology is. they’re looking for loaded words? then we need examples of what are loaded words that they’re looking for. that shouldn’t be too hard. it doesn’t even need to be exhaustive. just exhaustive enough.
Putting it on the individual articles makes it arbitrary. ask yourself… is “deadly” a loaded word? Or is it qualitative leading to understand that people actually died from the “deadly attack” rather than were just sent to the hospital in “an attack”. or that people died in a wildfire, hurricane or something else. Nobody can check every article to get a sense for their own criteria, and what they posted as a methodology is far from sufficient to the task of repeating their process. Ideally, I should be able to take their methodology article, follow it more or less step by step, and produce at least similar results. Can’t come even close.
On each page, they describe, in detail, exactly how they come to their conclusions.
Well, you may disagree with what they have to say, to say they’re hiding anything or that they aren’t being transparent or arbitrary is just untrue.
here’s their definition of what’s a left or right bias
It’s pretty fucking arbitrary.
Additionally, their methodology is a bunch of gibberish and buzz words. that they explain their justification on each article is inadequate. For example, Al jazeera is dinged for using “negative emotion” words like “Deadly”.
Deadly might invoke a certain kind of emotion. but it’s also the simplest way to describe an attack in which some one dies. Literally every news service will use “deadly attack” if people are dying, regardless if it’s an attack by terrorists, or by cackling baboons. (or indeed not even an attack. for example ‘Deadly wildfire’ or ‘deadly hurricane’.) the application of using that as an example is extremely arbitrary, on a case by case basis.
Now you’re just repeating yourself. That doesn’t make it any more true.
And as far as your claims of methodology being arbitrary, just because you use words in an arbitrary manner does not make their methodology arbitrary.
Like I said, just because you don’t agree with them doesn’t make them wrong or you right. Feel free to block them if you don’t like it. But other users here have clearly demonstrated how your argument does not hold water.
Okay.
Take their methodology.
Work through it.
You can’t because most of the “rigorous definitions “ aren’t shared.
You still haven’t explained what “factually consistent” means in a method that’s repeated and able to be applied regularly.
Their methodology as posted is far too vague to adequately consider their ability to provide consistent neutral ratings.
How are “loaded” words evaluated? Is there a table of words that are considered “loaded”? Personal feeling? We don’t know. We know what some of them are, since they’re mentioned on specific articles.
But that isn’t a consistent or “rigorously defined” criteria. So what is the “rigorously defined criteria”- and why is that not published?
Do you not see how that’s ripe for abuse?
I lost all confidence in it when it rated Jerusalem Post and Euronews (associated with Viktor Orban) as “highly reliable”. Both push the pro-fascist narratives of their associated governments. It’s better to have no labeling than to label fascist propaganda as “highly reliable”
Fucking hell even Euronews is controlled by Orbán? Ffs there is truly no free media here other than RTL on TVs.
Any thoughts on TLDR (Youtube channel)?
I think they’re pretty decent. Some More News is good too.
Any the branding of anything that is impartial as left center?? Like BBC News, Axios, Yahoo News, Sports Illustrated, left center??
And then the fucking economist which supported the UK conservatives not long ago and supported Bush is branded as left center
Same reason I don’t trust it - imagine rating fking BBC (the literal pro-state violence, austerity supporting, anti-immigration governmental mouth piece as “left-center”)
It just distorts people’s perception of what political biases are and makes them complacent by relying on an automated bot to do the important work of using your own judgment for what constitutes as moral or justified.
By letting it platform itself on lemmy, it’s basically inserting itself as the de facto expert on the topic - so for example, people overseas might see BBC rated as left-center and highly factual and start believing that wanting to “secure your borders” is a thing that UK leftist want. Well excuse me if I don’t want a privately owned (even if open source) US company deciding what political views others should have.
imagine rating fking BBC (the literal pro-state violence, austerity supporting, anti-immigration governmental mouth piece as “left-center”)
I believe it uses the American standard where anything based in reality is left of “center”, lol
Some people are pissed that the format is spammy? That’s the complaint I’ve heard.
I’d certainly prefer something like post tagging/labels but within the current feature set of lemmy I think it’s about as good as it could be.
That’s my gripe with it. Its single comment fills the entire screen of my phone when scrolling past and it uses gigantic font, a big separator line (?), and links mixed with text mixed with more links.
Additionally, it fucks with the “new comment” and “hot” sorting, depending on how active Lemmy is at the time, by spamming post after post with a comment even though there is no actual discussion happening.
You should use a client that supports all of the text formatting. On Voyager the bot’s comment is smaller than most when collapsed (which it is by default).
Yeah, I’m not changing my entire client that I’ve gotten used to just to deal with a single bot that annoys me.
You can’t block it?
And because it uses spoilers, when I click it to collapse the comment, it just expands
I downvoted then blocked it because:
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I don’t trust its specific analysis of sites. Others detail some examples.
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I don’t think whole-site analysis is very useful in combatting misinformation. The reliability and fullness of facts presented by any single site varies a lot depending on the topic or type of story.
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Other than identifying blatant disinformation sites I don’t see what useful information it provides. But even that’s rare here and rarely needs a bot to spot.
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Why is an open-source, de-centralized platform giving free space to a private company?
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Giving permission for a private trust-assesing company to be operating in an open public forum makes it look as if these assessments reflect a neutral reality that most or all readers would agree on or want to be aware of. It’s a service that people can seek out of they decide they trust it.
Presenting this company’s assessment on each or most articles gives them undue authority that is especially inappropriate on the fediverse.
Thank you, those are the precise point that summarize my gripes with it. In particular, I feel it encourages people to perceive it as an authoritative source and to form their opinions on sites it rates (often wrongly) without additional thinking / fact checking.
It’s basically a company propaganda tool that can change its own option and ratings any time, influencing others in the process.
Those are some great points. I do wish we had something better. But I find it to be “good enough” for when it’s a source I’m unfamiliar with.
Can’t quite say I have the time or motivation to start reading a bunch of other articles from a given source when I’m concerned about its credibility.
TBH, I just don’t think something better is possible - I suspect that there are no valid shortcuts to trust.
Unless something is just obviously bullshit, it will always take some time to develop a sense of how the different sources are treating a new story. Even a trusted source can prove unreliable on a particular topic.
It’s uncomfortable living with that uncertainty until you’ve seen a story from enough angles that you can judge for yourself. But either the story is important enough to me to spend that time, or I just accept that I can’t really know.
TBH, I just don’t think something better is possible - I suspect that there are no valid shortcuts to trust.
That’s why I like MBFC. I understand it’s impossible for them to be perfect and unbiased. But no one else is doing that work, so I’ll take what I can get.
Even a trusted source can prove unreliable on a particular topic.
I like the rule of thumb that good sources are more likely to be biased when reporting things internal to their own country. I usually look for the BBC, but if it’s about the UK, I’ll find another source. Al Jazeera is similar.
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I for one, appreciate that bot.
Same here, it’s becoming a habit to check every source.
Because it’s biased, takes up too much space, provides nothing of value, and its posts are by definition low effort.
For me to like a bot requires it provides something of value, be unbiased, and doesn’t take up too much space.
I used to be a fan of it, but in the past couple of years I’ve seen MBFC rate sources as “highly credible” that are anything but, particularly on issues involving geopolitics. That, plus the inherent unreliability of attempting to fix an entire news outlet to a single point on a simple Left <-> Right spectrum, has rendered it pretty useless, in my opinion.
There days I’m much more of the opinion that it’s best to read a variety of sources, both mainstream and independent, and consider factors like
- is this information well-sourced?
- is there any obvious missing context?
- is this information up to date?
- what are the likely ideological biases of this writer or publication?
- What is the quality of the evidence provided to support the claims made in the article?
And so on. It’s much better this way than outsourcing your critical thinking to a third party who may be using a flawed methodology.
I find it useful at a glance, specifically when I don’t recognize a niche source. There’s a lot of “alt” media under random names. This helps flag them.
For mainstream, you can easily make your own call. You should be exposed to enough of it.
Would you then be posting your conclusions? Like, if you’re gonna do that work on some of these posts anyway… may as well share.
When I was on in Reddit I used to do it all the time, but writing everything out, organizing it and including citations etc. can be rather time-intensive.
These days, I’ll leave a quick comment on a post if I have enough time, but nothing major.
To me, bots are just noise if not summoned directly. Like when you’re having a conversation with your friend, then a loud roomba comes in and tries to clean the very space you’re sitting at.
“Hey bot, tell me facts about the article OP posted.”
“Sure! [etc, etc]”
Versus:
“HEY I KNOW YOU HAVEN’T ADDRESSED ME DIRECTLY BUT YOU SAID THE WORD ‘BUTT’ 17 TIMES TODAY!”
It’s annoying when they are the first comment.
i’d appreciate a “butt” counter bot way more
That’s fair. I like having this bot as a sort of “auto-tag” thing, even if it’s not being summoned manually each time.
“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”
After the third or fourth time it’s just spammy, and the bot formatting just doesn’t work on connect.
“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”
That’s pretty much my gripe. One time I saw a post with maybe six, seven comments, opened it up, and they were all either the bot, or replies to the bot.
And even if you block the bot the post still shows up as having comments. So you’ll open up a post boasting the aforementioned six or seven comments expecting to find a lively debate, or at least a wisecrack about global affairs, and leave with a bunch of tumbleweeds and the lingering knowledge that somewhere, two or more people are arguing with a machine about whether or not it thinks the newspaper is any good.
It would be nice if bot comments weren’t counted, at least as an option.
the bot formatting just doesn’t work on connect.
That fault lies with the Connect dev though… the formatting used on the webUI works as intended.
Probably, still remains that out of all the bots I’ve seen this is the only one with format issues. I believe a minimalist approach to be preferable for bots since their goal is spreading information over a large userbase with various client, from CLI to native web page.
“Oh, this new post already has a comment, let’s check it out! … Dang it!”
Downvoting doesn’t address this. You can try hiding bots tho.
Downvoting definitely makes your opinion on it known though. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here reading all this.
I don’t think it does. People are explaining all kinds of different reasons why they downvote the bot, so there’s no cohesive reason why it gets downvoted.
In fact, a fair number of people don’t even seem to understand what the bot actually does…lol
I think that’s exactly what it does. It doesn’t matter why they don’t like having it around. They don’t like having it around. And that feedback is important.
It’s too much noise. Its posts are huge and take up way too much space.
So that bot claims fact already in it’s name. I learned to check facts myself. I will never trust automation to do that for me. Also bias and fact are two things that don’t go well together. One is measurable the other not at all. And the downvote is for anything I want to see less of.
IIRC, it lists a zionist/anti-Palestine news website as highly trustworthy. I can’t tell which side is right, I have it blocked.
Sites can be biased and tendentious without being factually inaccurate, though.
It’s possible to factually accurate with heavy bias, but since that would require selective reporting to enforce a single worldview I wouldn’t consider that “highly trustworthy”.
Consider the following hypothetical headlines:
“Teen Killed by Islamic Group During Shooting”
“Terrorist Shooting at Mosque, 20 Dead”Both are technically factually accurate ways to describe a hypothetical scenario where a teen shoots up a place of worship before being stopped by one of the victims, but they both paint very different pictures. Would you consider both sources “highly trustworthy”?
I’m not saying they can’t. I’m referring to a point that was championed in many a post by some .ml figures calling for the bot’s decommissioning. I don’t use the site (can’t even recall its name), and can’t speak for its credibility.
I guess I didn’t make it clear that it was second-hand information and not my personal informed opinion. In my defense, I was running on 4 hours of sleep.
What does Zionist mean? It hasn’t affected my life enough to actually look it up but I see it on every other article in the Israel/Palestine conflict.
wikipedia has a fairly neutral article on it.
Today, it usually refers to one of two groups- the far right political faction in Israel that believe there can be no peace with a two state solution (i.e. no Palestine,) and that it’s their god-given right to murder all palestinians to acheive peace…
Or the christian zionists that support them because their own faith says their god won’t come to save them until they- the jews- rebuild their temple. or something. Fundies get weird.
What? Wasn’t Israel originally the Palestine before a part of Palestine was designated Israel?
No, but that’s a common misconception. Palestine has never previously been a country, but was a region of the Ottoman Empire, then a part of the British Empire that more or less consisted of modern day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.
Under the Ottomans and the British, there was a Jewish minority, mostly in the region of Palestine, but also in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc.
Starting in the 1800s, Jews living in Europe began to move to the region in larger numbers (as well as Jews living in other parts of the Middle East and Africa). This was primarily motivated by antisemitic events in Europe, but also similar to the national movements that led to Prussia becoming Germany, the pan-Arab movement, re-establishing Poland, etc.
Here is a photo of the 1931 Palestinian football team that included Palestinian Jews as well as Palestinian Arabs.
How far back do you want to go?
If we’re talking Bronze Age, then the exodus didn’t happen. Or rather, only a small handful of refugees showed up and their story eventually became assimilated into Judaea’s and Israel’s cultural narrative.
Tracing ancestry back that far is problematic, but both cultures have equally valid and long standing claims to the region.
It’s like the Hatfield and McCoy feud, except it’s existed since the start of the Bronze Age (or earlier,)
In more modern history, Palestine was a British colony taken during ww1 as the leftovers of the Ottoman Empire, when the Palestine Mandate was done in an attempt to back out, and Jewish militants attacked everyone involved eventually leading to the creation of the current State of Israel.
Precisely. Wtf.
Too long, doesn’t work right in most apps, makes me think someone commented on the article while there’s only this bot’s post.
That last part is the biggest annoyance for me. Gives me false hope a conversation has started
Because fuck Ground News and fuck that spambot
Why fuck Ground News?
Their judgement of what’s left, what’s right, and what’s center is arbitrary and misleading.
Because I don’t trust some internet rando’s bot to have my best interests in mind.
