• oxjox@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      It attempts to offer both sides of a story. However, it more often offers both extreme or underreported sides of the story using lower-level websites (sometimes local newspapers putting commentary on top of national paper reports). It’s okay for finding stories but I still use reputable news outlets for obtaining facts.

      The majority of the sites it’s showing have the absolute worst popups and ads and autoloading videos with no ability to use an adblocker or even open an article outside it’s built in browser.

      I assume it’s primarily a data harvesting app.

      Most importantly, IT IS NOT A SOURCE and should be banned from Lemmy.

      Here is the source of the OP https://hosted.ap.org/standardspeaker/article/7e2ee1216e35891600737ce20cdc7d2d/white-house-faces-many-questions-about-bidens-health-and

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s an aggregator, it puts all the links to all the sources in one spot to save time searching. Aggregators are fine.

        • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          I could not disagree more with everything you have said.

          It’s an advertising portal disguised as an aggregator. It promotes articles that are the most click / rage baity to maintain your engagement. It is not a source of journalism. Linking to the general headline it “aggregates” is not proving source. It should be banned from this platform. If the quality of the content they aggregated was reasonable, I would have a slightly more forgiving opinion.

          Edit: For instance, while it does include AP as one of the sources, even though it is the actual ONLY source for this report, it’s the eleventh article linked on the page; with the first link going to a right-leaning website based Argentina.

          Edit 2: They also evidently “aggregate” using an algorithm which can be wrong. There are at least two different stories found here about a migrant raping a minor. One is about an Ecuadorian and the other is about a Honduran. The first link from a right-leaning Hungarian language site, doesn’t appear to be about either of these separate instances.

          • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I think even poor sources should be included in an automated aggregator like this. It’s not trying to feed us any form of the truth. It’s showing us everything that is out there, from the blatant propaganda to the respectable journalism, and everything in between.

            I do not use ground news to find out the truth. I use it to see what is being said. All of what is being said. I have my own methods for determining factuality, I don’t want a bot to do it for me.

              • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Again, I don’t want a bot to determine what is or is not true. I want it to collect everything people are saying and put it all in one spot. Are some people somewhere publishing something on the topic, true or false? Sometimes I want to see it.

                I want to know what everyone’s stance is, everyone’s messaging, even everyone’s lies, all in one convenient spot.

                Look at it as a propaganda monitoring service if you prefer, that happens to include genuine journalism as well, since it cannot tell the difference.

                • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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                  4 months ago

                  Wanting a bot to promote verifiably false information is fucked up. Wanting a bot to conflate multiple separate stories into one narrative is fucked up.

                  You and I may be fine with easily observing falsities but it has become readily apparent over the past 20+ years that literal fake news is having a measurable and long term impact on our society and planet. I fully agree that having access to multiple perspectives is fantastic and we should all want that. The issue is that this particular platform goes well beyond that.

                  Most humans are not intelligent enough to understand what they’re reading even when they are told what they’re reading is inaccurate https://lemmy.ml/post/17790884/12168067