Hey everyone!
I’m so excited to be the new top mod of this community. I’ve been a part of this community since the beginning, and I’ve seen how much it’s grown and evolved. I’m grateful to the previous top mod for creating this space, and I’m honored to be taking over.
On Twitter, I’m @CantStopPoppin, and on Reddit, I’m u/CantStopPoppin. I’ve been active on both platforms for over 5 years, and I’ve always been a strong advocate for diversity, inclusion, and quality content.
I’m planning to make a few slight changes to the community, but I want to get your input first. I want this to be a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of their background or beliefs. That means that hate speech, racism, anti-LGBTQ+, and trolling will not be tolerated.
I believe that our differences make us stronger together. We can learn from each other and create something truly special. I’m committed to listening to the community and working together to make this happen.
I’ll be leaving this post unlocked for 72 hours so that you can share your thoughts and suggestions. I’ll also be going through the comments to answer any questions you may have.
Here are a few specific things I’m thinking about changing:
- I’d like to make the community more welcoming to people from all walks of life. This means being more inclusive of people from different cultures, religions, and LGBTQ communities.
- I’d like to make the community more focused on quality content. This means promoting posts that are well-written, informative, and thought-provoking.
- I’d like to make the community more active. This means encouraging people to participate in discussions and share their thoughts and ideas.
I’m open to other suggestions, so please let me know what you think. I’m excited to work with you to make this community even better!
A few things to note:
- YouTube and Twitter will not be allowed in the community. Only legitimate news sources will be accepted.
- There may be a “Pundit Tuesday” in the future, but not at this time.
- Fox News local stations will be allowed, but their syndicated stations and talking heads will not be accepted due to their many dishonest reports and lawsuits.
I’m excited to hear your thoughts!
Thank you again for helping to create, nurture, and seed this community. I’m looking forward to working with you to make it even better!
This post will stay unlocked for 72 hours for an AMA. I will try to answer as many questions as I can, but it may take some time.
I hope to see you all in the comments!
Thanks for all the work. Your intent appears generally good, imo. Always good to have honest normal discussions and exchanging culture and viewpoints.
I also have a couple of questions for consideration:
How will this statement:
“That means that hate speech, racism, anti-LGBTQ+, and trolling will not be tolerated.”
work out with fox news?
Also fox is not then only (non unbiased) mainstream news outlet, which might conflict with your intended goal. And, what about spreading intentional mis- or disinformation ?
Fox is the only one that had to settle a lawsuit for lying. That’s different than spin or bias
They’ve also publicly and explicitly stated that they are not a news service but an entertainment channel, so their links should not be allowed in here as part of the basic rules anyway.
Thank you for this. This is what weighed on me while making this choice. It is important to know that their actions may have indirectly contributed to a violent insurrection and the rise of hate-based speech.
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I agree. The acceptance threshold for editorials and opinion pieces are just too low. Even in the Gray Lady they sometimes amount to little more than conspiratorial rants with better grammar and more sophisticated vocabulary.
The standard should ideally be on the articles themselves rather than the publication.
What issues exactly? About being biased? Any piece could be flagged or described as Op-ed. As long as that is made clear somehow, it should be ok, imo.
Also , many controversial articles are usually heavily opinionated, but are generally presented as " trustworthy news" .
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Many news is ( more or less) biased ,and thus is therefore (more or less) an opinion.
So what is" considered purely news", is the question we are trying to answer here, isn’t?
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You haven’t read my comments properly or aren’t understanding the nuance, I am afraid.
I’m with you on opinion pieces but I wouldn’t over pivot on the objectiveness of “news”.
I’m not sure there actually is such a thing as true objectivity, in practice. There are a ton of ways to inject subjectivity into seemingly objective news. An obvious one is selection bias. Journalists and editors decide what to write about and publish. They decide who gets quoted and which facts get presented. Even if they tell no lies, that leaves a lot of room to present those facts in a variety of different lights.
I think the best we can hope for is independent verifiability. If an article makes a claim, do I just have to believe them or do I have some reasonable way to check, that doesn’t involve the author?
That’s an interesting question, obviously Newsmax should be right out like it’s ilk info wars, but what about democracy now and mother… forget the name?
They haven’t been sued as much, but they definitely have similar forms of spectacle.
Do you mean Mother Jones? They clearly have a left-bias but afaik their reporting is factual (according to Media Bias Fact Check, last checked 2022).
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mother-jones/
They consider Democracy Now! to have a bias left of Mother Jones but also highly accurate. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/democracy-now/
Asside: I just discovered https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/2023/07/17/the-latest-fact-checks-curated-by-media-bias-fact-check-07-17-2023/ I found that when I was looking at what it takes for MediaBiasFactCheck to consider a source to have “very highly” reliability rather than simply “high” reliability. Spoilers, you basically need to be an academic journal.
That is interesting, it’s been a while since I read into their methodology.
I’m not quite understanding what you’re saying re Democracy Now!, I had a quick scan of their current articles… seems to match up with what MBFC says.
No ulterior motive. My post is intended to be interpreted literally. You seemed to be saying that the MBFC rating is good evidence that we should trust MJ. I’m following up and saying that DN meets the same criteria and should be judged the same way.
The first post in this thread questioned if either DN or MJ should be included in the list of reliable sources. You pointed out that while MBFC cites MJ as having a left bias they also cite them as highly accurate.
DN gets basically the same grade from MBFC as MJ.
Even though “high” accuracy is only their second highest rating, “very high” is typically reserved for academic journals and that makes “high” the best rating that you can reasonably expect from a non-academic journal.
The page for DN also notes that there have been 0 corrections in the past 5 months.
Fox News has been criticized for its use of fear-mongering and its presentation of opinions as facts. I would be happy to vet any other sources that you find concerning on a case-by-case basis.
I believe that it is important to have a diversity of news sources, so that we can get a variety of perspectives. However, it is also important to be critical of the sources we consume, and to be aware of their biases.
I believe that it is important to have a diversity of news sources, so that we can get a variety of perspectives. However, it is also important to be critical of the sources we consume, and to be aware of their biases.
Exactly.