MediaBiasFactChecker almost broke the whole system - SLRPNK
slrpnk.net
Everything’s been working smoothly, with nothing to report about the moderation bot. The community has been quiet but productive, which was precisely the goal, and the bot working smoothly with no issues. However, something almost went wrong in a particular entertaining fashion which I thought I would share. The algorithm for classifying troll users doesn’t have any polarity. It only knows which users are opposed to which other users. 50% of the time, it’ll get its whole ranking system backwards, so the troll users are the normal ones, and everyone else gets negative rank, because the math works just as well under that ranking regime. Generally this isn’t a problem, because there’s a step: # Flip the sign if we arrived at a majority-negative ranking, which can happen if -min_val > max_val: rank[1:] *= -1 The most popular user is always more popular than the least popular troll is unpopular, by quite a big margin, so that works fine. However. Things have changed. MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world is so unpopular that it’s almost (1% margin) more unpopular than the highest-rank user is popular. If that had happened, the whole polarity would have flipped, every user would have been banned, all the trolls would have been unbanned. Mass hysteria. I only happened to notice it before it happened and stop the bot. It’s on track to be the least popular user on Lemmy, with about 5 times lower rank than some of the most notorious trolls. Have fun with this information. I started checking the median rank of all users, instead. Thanks MediaBiasFactChecker.
  • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
    4414·
    11 days ago

    I honestly don’t understand why people are downvoting the media bias bot. From what I’ve seen, it is pretty accurate. Is it that people see the comment count go up and expect a human comment to interact with, only to be disappointed and then downvote the bot?

    If so, I’d suggest Lemmy/Mbin to not could comments made by bot accounts towards the total comment count.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
      36·
      11 days ago

      MBFC equates respectable outlets like The Guardian and literal nazi rag Breitbart

      It’s propaganda masquerading as impartiality

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
      251·
      11 days ago

      I honestly don’t understand

      Could have just stopped there tbh.

      From what I’ve seen, it is pretty accurate

      It’s not. It’s the hobby of a right wing Zionist masquerading as a neutral and authorative arbiter of facts and bias.

      For example, it rates The Guardian, Fox News and Breitbart as equally factual.

      Is it that people see the comment count go up and expect a human comment to interact with, only to be disappointed and then downvote the bot?

      That too, yes. Personally I have it blocked and get annoyed by there being no comments in stead.

      If so, I’d suggest Lemmy/Mbin to not could comments made by bot accounts towards the total comment count.

      Or just get rid of the biased and counterfactual bias and fact checker.

    • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
      16·
      11 days ago

      The Bot is wildly inaccurate as other people have pointed out. Even having the idea of potentially one person verifying the veracity of all news media is plainly ludicrous.

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
      11·
      11 days ago

      I don’t like it because it’s placing an objective statement on a subjective matter. it’s also apparently run by a single person (which is understandable given what it needs to do) but I just don’t like the vibes that gives off.

      I think it’d be a lot better if it just stated objective things (e.g. where their funding comes from, the corporate relationships, country they’re based in)

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
      6·
      11 days ago

      For me I liked it at first but ended up blocking it after it started doing “more stories like” which revealed that it was clearly there to turn a profit.

  • Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world
    19·
    11 days ago

    I like how everyone hates this Bot! I don’t really care about this Bot itself, but it’s funny how no one likes the Bot and yet they still trying to make it work somehow :P

  • RedC@sh.itjust.works
    151·
    11 days ago

    The internet is full of enough bots without making a bot for every dumbass thing on the fediverse, but I guess we really are reddit 2.0