4 ms·

It seems kind of invalid to try and apply a media bias score to social media. What's the media bias of Reddit? It's going to be very different comparing /r/Whit

It seems kind of invalid to try and apply a media bias score to social media. What's the media bias of Reddit? It's going to be very different comparing /r/WhitePeopleTwitter with /r/PoliticalCompassMemes. Similar deal with Wikipedia, bias is more on a page-by-page or contributor basis.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
HN is essentially a single subreddit. But its a fairly specific/topical subreddit, where a left-right score is questionably meaningful.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  Is 0 an invalid score?
  - djbusby 3y ago
    Zero seems like the ideal amount of bias.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      And an inhumane one. The History of Philosophy book series has something like this in its intro (I’m butchering it up): everyone has their biases, so the best thing we can do is to state them upfront.
hgsgm 3y ago
What are talking about? HN is not Reddit. MBFC doesn't report on Reddit. Wikipedia has editorial leadership and enforcement.
stephendause 3y ago
I agree that it seems kind of invalid but only kind of. Any site that has an editorial policy and/or a ranking algorithm for what gets more views will have some forms of bias. I agree that in the case of reddit, it makes sense to evaluate each subreddit on its own. Also, if a page where users make submissions that mostly lean in one direction or another, that could be useful information to know.
wsgeorge 3y ago
> What's the media bias of Reddit? A couple of ways you could answer this: 1. Where does the Reddit user community lean, taken as a whole. That shouldn't be hard to compute or guesstimate. 2. Where do the owners of Reddit lean (as reflected by the subset of their policies which can reasonably dictate political leaning)? 3. Where do the most influential Reddit user accounts and communities lean? Computing a media bias score for social media isn't that far fetched, even if the result may be fuzzier than, say, a journal with an editorial bent.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

HN is essentially a single subreddit. But its a fairly specific/topical subreddit, where a left-right score is questionably meaningful.

hgsgm 3y ago
Is 0 an invalid score?
- djbusby 3y ago
  Zero seems like the ideal amount of bias.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    And an inhumane one. The History of Philosophy book series has something like this in its intro (I’m butchering it up): everyone has their biases, so the best thing we can do is to state them upfront.

hgsgm 3y ago

What are talking about? HN is not Reddit. MBFC doesn't report on Reddit. Wikipedia has editorial leadership and enforcement.

stephendause 3y ago

I agree that it seems kind of invalid but only kind of. Any site that has an editorial policy and/or a ranking algorithm for what gets more views will have some forms of bias. I agree that in the case of reddit, it makes sense to evaluate each subreddit on its own. Also, if a page where users make submissions that mostly lean in one direction or another, that could be useful information to know.

wsgeorge 3y ago

> What's the media bias of Reddit? A couple of ways you could answer this: 1. Where does the Reddit user community lean, taken as a whole. That shouldn't be hard to compute or guesstimate. 2. Where do the owners of Reddit lean (as reflected by the subset of their policies which can reasonably dictate political leaning)? 3. Where do the most influential Reddit user accounts and communities lean? Computing a media bias score for social media isn't that far fetched, even if the result may be fuzzier than, say, a journal with an editorial bent.