
Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news? - harigov
We all know how the election turned out. I believe the internet is contributing to echo chambers because of filter bubbles. I think it is rare to see some news that is not biased one way or another, and I believe it is hard to expect it not to be so, because of our own individual biases. I think there is a need for tools that can help us see the other side.<p>What if we had a tool that is delivered as a browser extension, that can show links to alternate views (think URL links) of the exact same topic that you are reading? It can use information like how biased the current article is towards different people&#x2F;events&#x2F;ideas and find an alternate article that can help you understand other-side. It may not solve all the problems but it would be a good start. Would you find it useful? Do you have a better idea?<p>This requires skills (NLP&#x2F;ML) that I don&#x27;t have but I am willing to spend time&#x2F;effort (I am a programmer&#x2F;big-data-engineer) to make it a reality. Would anyone be interested in working on it? It will be open source and any organization that runs this will be non-profit.
======
michaelbuckbee
I'm concerned that your frame for this might be off as I don't think the
"filter bubble" is rational opposing viewpoints around a particular topic so
much as there just being so much misinformation and plain weirdness out there.

There's a saying about it being 10x harder to refute bullshit than it is to
spew it. How do we in the information and technology wing of society build
tools to deal with that?

Alex Jones had a rant about how Obama and Hillary Clinton both smell like
sulfur because they're demons.

I'd assert it's a "real story" and exactly the kind of filter bubble issue
we're talking about as Alex Jones was personally thanked post election by
Trump [1] and when it happened the sitting president of the United States made
remarks about it [2].

I had a real conversation with an elderly relative of mine who told me quite
straight faced that they read all about this and how it was true - this isn't
bubbles it's different realities.

1 - [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-alex-
jones_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-alex-
jones_us_5829eb21e4b0c4b63b0d9249)

2 - [http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/obama-sulfur-smell-
al...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/obama-sulfur-smell-alex-jones/)

~~~
mtberatwork
Indeed, if we do not agree to a common set of facts and a shared reality, how
then do we proceed with any kind of meaningful debate? To paint a basic
picture, how do you debate the feasibility and merits of sending humans to
Mars with a person who denies the moon landings? You might say these are
extreme cases, but with the rise and "normalization" of Alex Jones-type media
outlets, this will only get worse.

~~~
splawn
Exactly, when it comes to reality not everybody gets a trophy. Critical
thinking and science are waaaay undervalued in our culture.

~~~
551199
Reality is lot of the science is wrong as well. Intentionally paid by special
interest or the end result is defined before any science is done.

You don't want to look science religiously either.

~~~
cwisecarver
IIRC one of the main tenants of science, when I was learning it in middle
school in the early '90s, was that it's fact until it's disproven. We don't
know everything about it which is what makes it different than religion.
There's no faith involved.

I know a lot of it is corrupt and aiming for a target but good scientists will
tell you that they're basing their findings on studies which may have flaws
and they'd want you to try and reproduce their studies to tell them if they've
gotten something wrong.

~~~
pizza
This is what falsifiability is all about in science.

Mathematics relies upon proofs, but there is no such thing as a scientific
proof.. You can find sufficient conditions for a phenomenon and have a wholly
water-tight argument as to why it occurs, but you can't use use observation to
find necessary condition.

This is because observations are evidence, and if a future observation shows
problems with your theory, you should not discard your evidence (unless of
course your secondary theory is that your evidence exhibits a model for some
reason why it doesn't explain what it seems to explain on the surface, e.g.
experimental error), yada yada..

~~~
Chris2048
I'm not sure this is True, as you can use probabilistic arguments.

~~~
pizza
Probabilistic models are what I was referring to; all probabilistic models
should produce a prediction, and also a measure of confidence. That measure of
confidence can never be 100%. Similarly, you can never have an
incontrovertible belief that is not a mathematically/logically-constructed
fact 'outside' of the messy real world in some abstract chamber walled off
from anything that is like a real life observation, no matter how certain.
Basically, you can't have P(A) = 0 or 1 as your prior probability, because
then you break Bayes' rule in the sense that new evidence is meaningless -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell%27s_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell%27s_rule)

------
return0
I think the tool you need is "skepticism". Teach people to not rush to ascribe
labels to everything they don't like, and to stop ignoring anything that has
been labeled as X-ist by their bubble. Teach people to not think with slogans
and hashtags or listen to celebrities.

~~~
harigov
Well, that may work but you also need to have intellectual resources to be
able to process all the information and see something for what it really is.
Also, people serving news are upping the game by using the latest in
psychology research to influence us. We need _somebody_ on our side.

~~~
return0
Hmm, i think its a very difficult task. I think perhaps a useful thing would
be to intentionally break the bubbles. Something like an inverse-
recommendation engine. E.g. instead of "people who read article X also read
Y", you say "people who read X did not read Z". Or if you had access to
people's facebook likes (does facebook provide an API?) you could find the
most anti-correlated users and recommend each other's liked stuff etc.

~~~
harigov
Isn't what I mentioned sort of similar? It is difficult for sure which is why
I am asking for help.

~~~
return0
I think people in general avoid the other side, and they don't have enough
time for that. Thats why i suggest a mix up of sides. That way you read each
story once, but as a whole you get exposed to both contexts.

~~~
harigov
Interesting. I'll keep this in mind.

------
alistproducer2
> I think it is rare to see some news that is not biased one way or another

I would posit that part of the problem is the implicit assumption that biased
!= factual. This assumption is true on both sides of the political spectrum,
but it takes on a different character for those on the right.

I understand the sentiment that prompted you to post this, I'm just not sure
what you propose is any kind of a solution. If anything I believe it may make
things worse by affirming the bias != factual assumption.

~~~
mtberatwork
I would also add that the "bias argument" is trotted out so much that it
appears to be turning into a cliche in its own right. For instance, I may link
to a cogent, factual article published by Politifact only to have it quickly
dismissed as a "biased" source by those too lazy to consider its content.

------
noname123
This is a pretty good website and they also have a proprietary algorithm to
determine the political spectrum of the source:
[http://www.allsides.com/](http://www.allsides.com/)

NYTimes is ranked moderately liberal while Fox News is ranked right
([http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-
ratings](http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-ratings))

~~~
harigov
Thanks! It seems interesting. The problem I see is that - it's hard to pull
people away from their news sources to something unbiased. We need to take
unbiased articles to the people. Also, journals shouldn't be the only source.
Every side needs to be heard and someone's voice may come from their own blog.
I am not sure how it would work but we should at least give it a try.

~~~
rando9000
I'm curious how you think this would work.

First of all, I'm interested in what you think a news publication free of bias
would look like. Would it be a straight recitation of factual occurrences?
That would be useless, right? How would you decide which story gets a big
headline? Which detail gets included?

Second, the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that
there is any such thing as "fact" that matters. Evidence, etc. is irrelevant.
Look at the Right's views on climate change, etc. I'm sure there are people on
Hacker News etc. who will be like "now you're just being a Bias Liberal!" if I
don't say "the Left has its problems too" but the Left's problems, such as
they are, are the traditional problems of political parties: maybe the Left's
policy prescriptions won't work, maybe their need to maintain a coalition
means they aren't able to address Problem P, etc.

The Right in the USA is unique in having decided that there is no evidentiary
standard high enough when Rightist positions conflict with reality. So
removing bias from news sources and ensuring everything is quite factual won't
affect the ~40% or so of the USA who frankly couldn't give a flying fuck about
reality.

~~~
harigov
I am not interested in unbiased news sources. I am interested in showing
alternately biased news source so that you can develop your own opinion. Even
showing snippets of alternate views superposed on the same article can help
people a bit.

My aim is not to solve the problem in its entirety. If others cannot
understand our opinion, we should at least try to understand theirs. The
current situation is horrible in terms of people not even having a clue as to
what's going on. If 10% benefit from this, that means there are 10% of people
who at least know both/many sides.

~~~
lj3
> it's hard to pull people away from their news sources to something unbiased.
> We need to take unbiased articles to the people.

> I am not interested in unbiased news sources.

So, which is it? I think the focus on bias vs unbiased news sources is a
distraction. ALL news is biased. That is something that will never change.

> If others cannot understand our opinion

What if the issue here is that others understand your opinion perfectly, but
still disagree with it? This whole conversation is starting to sound a lot
like you want a tool that will magically make people agree with you.

~~~
harigov
Good catch regarding the biased/unbiased. Parent to that post pointed out that
there is a news source that tries to show unbiased news. I was implying that
we need to take such news sources to people, rather than expecting them to get
to that on their own. As I mentioned elsewhere, the idea is not to show
unbiased news but rather show other side of the news (in the bias spectrum). I
am not entirely clear on what makes the most sense, which is why I posted it
here.

I don't have any claims on people not agreeing with me. I have claims on me
not understanding what's going on. I think if such a tool as I proposed
existed, I would be happy to use it.

~~~
htwillie
The best "tool" available is the No Agenda Podcast.

Hosts Adam and John present national and global issues as portrayed by mass
media, and systematically DECONSTRUCT the stories. They not only highlight
biases, but explore propagandistic elements and discuss how the media
intentionally affects the consumers.

Most importantly, they work to identify the MOTIVATIONS for medias' biases in
the first place, and demonstrate for their listeners how to be much more
critical, skeptical, and analytical in the way they consume the news.

Listen to a few episodes and you might rethink the need for building a tool at
all.

~~~
jquip
In all aspects, they would be brilliant, but what about spectrum of content
coverage. What about readership?

But this dissemination of information by identifying biases of the entities
involved is a tactic that can be used by anyone. Objective thinking belongs to
everyone, doesn't it?

------
wendybeth
I also don't have the skills for building such a thing. But if I could help
with such a project through testing/QA, or contributing to a website, or
gathering resources - whatever, really - I would, and I would use it. I've
been thinking a lot about confirmation bias and echo chambers lately, too, and
the truth is I don't know exactly where to look for opposing viewpoints all
the time, and it's hard to gather the courage to just dive in when I know a
good amount of it will make me feel ill.

Maybe just starting with a collection of opposing resources? There could be a
call to action to ask people to submit articles or sources for various
"stances" on different topics, and a list divided by topics and view points,
or links to the few sane and awesome discussions you can occasionally find
where people who think differently actually talk to each other about their
differences like rational human beings. That might be an approachable place to
start, anyway.

~~~
harigov
I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.

------
jstewartmobile
One component of this problem that is rarely mentioned is bias-by-omission.
Journalists commit this sin frequently and vigorously. With enough elbow
grease, you could make some progress towards detecting it.

------
pg314
It is certainly an interesting idea, and I don't want to discourage you, but
how would you reach the people who would benefit from it the most? If you are
aware of a filter bubble, you can easily seek out alternative information...

~~~
harigov
Good point. If it works, maybe we can convince browser developers to include
this as default similar to how security is done. We are putting more effort to
secure our computers than securing our minds. Even if I were aware of being in
a filter bubble, it takes time and effort to get out of that. We need to make
it easy.

~~~
arkymark
I agree with the comment below about this being a technological solution to a
human problem. That said, I'm interested in looking into the NLP/data side of
things, and I look forward to how this idea would supplement existing news
sources. Keep me posted on the status of this project! :)

~~~
harigov
I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
\- drop me an email at my id @ gmail if you want to join the discussions

------
mevile
I saw two big issues on both right wing and left wing political blogs and news
sources over the election: assumption of bad faith (and in the worst case
intentionally taking the least favorable interpretation of some news item) and
lack of fact checking. Untruths abound.

It happened on both sides, people were routinely taking everything Trump was
saying and turning into a joke or making it out worse than it was (some things
were very bad and deserved the attention, but lots of things weren't bad but
were painted with that same brush). Until people are willing to admit that
whatever the result will be of this kind of project will not address the root
of the problem.

------
wyldfire
I think the idea is promising but I'm pessimistic that those who need it most
would opt-in.

It sounds like a valuable project: good luck.

~~~
harigov
Thanks. It is clear that most organizations don't want to invest effort in
doing what is right. If there is some ready-to-use extension/service that is
proven to help, maybe we can convince the browser developers to include it in
their default installation.

~~~
lj3
That's a dangerous idea. You seem convinced that you're right and other people
are wrong. So much so that you want to force this idea of right and wrong on
people by installing it in their browser by default?! This smacks of soviet
era re-education.

> maybe we can convince the browser developers to include it in their default
> installation.

Any browser that decided to do this would quickly find themselves out of
business. Free will exists for a reason. Attempt to circumvent it at your own
peril.

~~~
harigov
I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I am not talking about
right and wrong. I am talking about someone's opinion and alternate opinions.

~~~
lj3
It's the "let's add it to the browser by default" part I have an issue with.
If people want to be able to see alternate opinions easily, they'll install it
on their own. If they don't, no amount of forcing it on them will get them to
consider alternate opinions. It'll just piss them off.

------
PaulHoule
Another issue is that many biases are structural, technological or driven by
commercial pressures.

For instance, I would say CNN is biased toward coverage of school shootings
and airplane crashes. CNN has the problem that there is not enough news to
fill 24 hours so they run a heavy rotation of the same crap that is cheap to
produce. Probably the best footage they show is stuff they downloaded off
Youtube.

When you catch the CNN crew on a slow news Sunday they will admit that their
problem is engaging an audience, both in the sense that they need to make
money and also in the sense that they have some duty to inform the populace,
the populace has duty to inform itself, etc. The truth is their content is
boring, depressing, and awful but they have varied their formula a lot and
they really believe they've found a local maximum of what people will watch.

In some sense CNN was biased towards Trump because he's interesting. I would
look for news about Trump every day because it was likely he would say
something crazy again and I think this was the case for a lot of other people.
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all had great ratings this season.

This 1971 book

[https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/...](https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/dp/0060902582/)

is about as ahead of it's time as Ted Nelson's work and is very much about
what news would be like in the age of the World Wide Web and it contains a
damning indictment of the very concept of "news". (i.e. not only is there not
enough news to fill a 24 hour tv show, but it's arguable that there is enough
news to fill a newspaper every day)

~~~
jjn2009
>In some sense CNN was biased towards Trump because he's interesting.

Bias with respect to how much coverage there was of the candidates, however
many would say the content of that coverage was biased against him.

Besides this small point I agree. Time spent on a particular subject or topic
is a subtle bias in itself which can be driven by many things (including
money) and has huge effects on public perception of people and issues.

How does one expose bias in this subtle behaviour in an automated way, even
with machine learning?

~~~
PaulHoule
I think the sheer amount of press coverage that Trump got made him stand out
of the pack.

Really I think a lot of the negative coverage Trump got could have been
beneficial to him. For instance, if you are looking for somebody who is going
to "shake up Washington", then denunciations from Republicans such as Mitt
Romney and Paul Ryan add to his credibility.

~~~
jjn2009
I think it's more probable than not that it ended up helping him, but it
significantly polarized opinion of him as a candidate.

------
pinetop
I recently began working on a (somewhat) related NLP project looking at the
shift in sentiment in Trump-focused articles published pre- and post-
election. The motivation for the project is the observation that many of the
left-leaning news media outlets - who consistently lambasted Trump in the
lead-up to the US election - have begun to dial back their criticism post
election, presumably in an attempt to (re)build bridges and ensure their
continued relevance in the ensuing Trump milieu. It seems that the results of
such an analysis have the potential to be a concrete and relatively simple
example of the deviation from any stable media narrative, and perhaps a nice
opportunity to spread this message to a slightly wider audience.

The project is nascent, but it should be straightforward to implement (I have
already begun to amass articles from several major news sources). While this
may or may not be relevant to your stated goal, I'd be happy to share more
info if you're interested!

~~~
harigov
Hey pinto, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
I would like to make use of your code for fetching articles from different
news sources as a starting point. You are free to contribute to the project as
well. Please let me know!

------
iaw
What I've wanted for a while was a curated news source that allowed me to
collapse topics (e.g. only one story about the presidential race per day). The
goal would be to present both "perspectives" as well as identify the core
shared truths between the two.

The problem is cross-article context comparison is actually a bit harder than
news article summarization and the amount of time required to pursue it made
it seem a bit too much of a chore.

One extension would fall to politicians and public entities that make
statements where it could validate/compare their statements to their historic
actions. Beyond the "is this reporting accurate" it would go into "do we think
this actor is being truthful based on historic behavior"

Edit: The other nice thing about this is that I could hear about the things
that _aren 't_ the recent election cycle or terrorist attack. It's like
sensationalist news signals were saturated which raised the noise floor
drowning out all of the other news.

------
mazr
We have a small team of researcher on that topicm working from Berlin and
Paris, come say Hi or get in touch ! :) [http://cmb.huma-num.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Algodiv-Ge...](http://cmb.huma-num.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Algodiv-GeneralPresentation-2016-en.pdf) A great
article of O'Reilly about this topic too :
[https://medium.com/@timoreilly/media-in-the-age-of-
algorithm...](https://medium.com/@timoreilly/media-in-the-age-of-
algorithms-63e80b9b0a73)

~~~
harigov
Hey mazr, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
I think your expertise could be of real help in building this.

------
anasfirdousi
I'm already working on my startup which started way before this election. News
bias didnt happen and it is not a new problem. It's been there for centuries.
Unfortunately, it's my startup idea and I don't want to open source it. The
work is in its super early stages but if some one is interested in teaming up
on this and working together, shoot me an email at anas.firdousi@gmail.com. I
live in Silicon Valley so if your local it will be great but location doesn't
really matter if you passionate about the idea!

------
tmj
Instead of making some sort of judgement call (this is biased in X manner),
how about a tool along the lines of something I read about in an SF story a
long time ago (sorry, don't recall the title or author). I remember the point-
of-view character looking at news items on a screen and things like
"connotation indices" and "hyperbole metrics" were included. Those sorts of
indicators would give each reader a chance to realize to what degree bias
exists and leave it to them to decide how important that was.

------
cdvonstinkpot
I was on an Assembly project that tried to do this, think it was called
"Flipside". It never went anywhere, IIRC required coders didn't materialize.

Having been inspired by sama's dialogue regarding the downside of unfriending
those with opposing views (on the election), I've militantly kept up on
opposing Facebook friends' perspectives, giving conscious effort to see their
point(s). I see the value in adding opposing news sources to my feed, but the
rancor I see (on both sides) is a turn off. Haven't found reliable opposing
sources that don't require that I, at least at some level, apply a sort of
what I've come to refer to as 'normalizing' their points. So much emotionally
charged rhetoric- I guess the 'sizzle' factor sells, but requires additional
calories burnt to see through & try not to be disproportionally influenced by.

Maybe a sub-Reddit or sub-Voat -type thing could be built which includes meta-
rating elements to allow for rating bias leanings. Dunno what kind of software
might already exist that could do this kind of thing for cheap.

tl;dr: A failed Assembly project tried this recently It's hard to create a
fair Facebook feed of opposing views A Reddit/Voat -type board with meta-
elements to track bias might exist cheap

~~~
jquip
I'm thinking on the same lines as you! :)

------
qwrusz
A different or supplementary approach could be removing the bias from a news
item.

Instead of trying to determine which biased side an article is skewed towards
_and_ then finding other links to what is determined to be the "alternative
view". Scrubbing bias or at least highlighting it is already helpful.

For example: at work we get daily emailed briefs with major business news
items summarized to ~3-5 bullet points of facts. Journalist opinions/bias and
rhetoric language is mostly removed in the bullet point sentences. It's not a
perfect system by any means, not even close, and I would love to see something
similar offered that's improved and expanded in what it can do.

This type of bias scrubbing/summarizing is easier in business news and sports
news which involve more numbers and figures reporting (+nowadays many of the
full articles may also be written entirely by bots - see link below). It would
be harder to expand this for longer investigative/politics news articles. But
a partial imperfect solution here is better than status quo.

I would be a user of a tool that could summarize key "unbiased facts" from
articles and I would be interested in helping build it too.

Link to a NYT story about algos writing/summarizing news:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/if-an-
algor...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/if-an-algorithm-
wrote-this-how-would-you-even-know.html?_r=0)

~~~
hga
What if the bias was created by omitting important facts that, for example,
contradict the narrative of the item.

Sports are indeed a good domain for what you're talking about, but that's
because they're run by well known rules, it's a highly artificial domain, not
directly including the messiness of general human affairs (except in that
they're played, refereed, managed etc. by humans).

Business ... well, how many stories about Yahoo! have ignored its negative
market net worth when its Alibaba stake is removed, when that was relevant?
Not necessarily examples of bias, but....

~~~
qwrusz
Good point about omission of important facts. It's tough because facts can be
absent from a news item intentionally and unintentionally. Journalists have
time and size constraints - so even when striving for accuracy and
objectivity, facts may just be missed and some other known facts will
certainly be left out as determined not relevant enough at the time of
writing. This is just the reality of reporting news.

Professional Journalism has ethics and standards - of course w/ ongoing
debates in how they are practiced - and they are taken seriously by the
industry as a whole. Wikipedia has more info:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standard...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards)

Ultimately, for news items where a reader wants to get a fuller picture of the
story he/she is going to have to go read multiple longer articles about it.
Scrubbed bullet points may offer discovery with less bias at this initial
stage and from which to choose those stories to go read more about.

I don't want to get off topic, but the Yahoo example mentioned is interesting
and I think worth maybe discussing so

 _TL;DR skip this next part if very wonky Yahoo stock news reporting is not an
interest:_

Where did you get your Yahoo business news?...Firstly, Yahoo's (YHOO) value is
not negative ex Alibaba (BABA). "A company's shares are worth what someone is
willing to pay for them" is a relevant quote here and Verizon offered ~$4.8
Billion to buy Yahoo ex Alibaba (also ex Yahoo Japan btw).

Pretty big difference between a negative value and $4.8Billion!

Second, if talking about a stub Yahoo valuation? Like using some shorthand
value estimation method based on looking at: (BABA's recent stock
prices)x(size of Yahoo's stake) and comparing that amount to where YHOO's
market cap is trading at? Then yes you could end up at all kinds of crazy
totals, including negative numbers, depending on what shorthand valuation
method you chose to use...

But these types of calculations, maybe interesting and fun, are basically
meaningless in the real world. The amount Yahoo will receive for its Alibaba
stake at some unknown time in the future cannot be calculated accurately from
BABA's stock price today. Nor can it derived from whatever $ amount Yahoo has
written in its books for the value of their BABA stake (Book value <> market
value). (Sum of parts also <> market value)

Yahoo can be trading at a discount (or a premium) to one's hypothetical future
value calculations for all kinds of reasons: eg YHOO's potential +$10B tax
liability uncertainty should they sell their BABA shares with capital gains
(Yahoo still talking to IRS about this and its unclear how it will play out
but it's shocking Yahoo has not been given clearer answers by the IRS yet to
quite fair questions about the tax code)

Yahoo is also still facing material issues in Verizon deal not yet finalized
(YHOO email breach may change terms, this is also unclear), etc.. etc..

Basically, _Stock Valuation Is Not News_. Though some stock trading websites
look like news or are attached to legit news sites (Barron's to WSJ for
example). Barron's is not news.

NYTimes DealBook discussed Yahoo stub being negative. DealBook is a blog.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/dealbook/how-
to-v...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/dealbook/how-to-value-
yahoos-core-business.html?_r=0)

An analogy for those not familiar with Yahoo's stock price valuation: This is
like guessing how much money you could receive from selling your house if you
tore it down and sold it for scrap wood and separately put the plot of land on
the market. You also have to calculate this future value without knowing if
your local council will approve the idea, or how long it will take, or what
prices for scrap wood/plots of land will be, or how much tearing down _your_
house will cost, or the % odds you secretly have been living in a house built
over an old unicorn graveyard and can't sell the land at all.

One can imagine all these factors are why a number calculated for future
"value" of stock may be _very_ different than what actually is received when a
sale happens. Like way off. Like a negative number vs. +$4.8Billion way off.

------
larubbio
I had thought about something like this a couple of years ago. My idea wasn't
really about tracking bias, but providing reputation for authors and news
outlets. Users (via a browser plugin or some other mechanism) could declare an
article or statement as biased in a certain direction. That vote would give me
information about the article, the news outlet and the reader. I could then
present that information back to users. In this way I could learn just how
biased I am (and maybe even the areas of my bias) and the bias of authors and
organizations. Perhaps you could see how an author's bias changes when they
write for different sites.

However I don't think just pointing out bias will really help. People like
their bubbles, and moving out of them is painful and potentially with real
world consequences for them. I also think if you show a user an articles bias
ahead of time, it will just be used as a filter or a way to reinforce their
bubble. I thought this article was interesting.

[http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-
politics-...](http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-
makes-us-stupid)

~~~
jquip
Very insightful.

------
crimsonalucard
How do separate bias from truth?

If I said more asian people are smarter than white people I am biased and
racist.

If I said more asians have black hair than white people I am not biased, I'm
stating an objective fact.

The only fundamental difference between the two statements is that there are
hard numbers lending support to one statement (asians having black hair) and
the other statement does not. Neither statement, from a technical standpoint,
can be verified definitively.

To build a machine that identifies whether or not a statement is biased one
must first build a machine that identifies whether or not the underlying
statement is true or false.

Building such a machine is an impossible endeavor because the means in which
we identify whether or not something true or false is through data, a source
which in itself can be biased.

------
garysieling
I built a search engine for lectures
([https://www.findlectures.com](https://www.findlectures.com)), partly to
explore this problem. I think what you're describing would be challenging, but
if you do work on this please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss
ideas.

My approach has been to obtain collections based on recommendations, filter
out low quality material (bad audio, lots of ums, etc) and categorize it so
you can explore freely.

Someone has to fund free content, and the missing topics are a form of bias -
I can't guarantee that there is a counter-argument to every lecture.

------
rkayg
Great idea! I am working on pushing my Facebook colleagues to work on this as
well. I think the problem will not be solved unless Facebook makes a serious
effort. The issue is that like the filter bubbles that are created in the
social network, the company is also in an echo chamber of its own.

So, I think for all the folks that know Facebook employees, break them out of
their bubble (if they are already broken, commend them and encourage them to
improve Facebook). Show them that Facebook is not so rosy colored as it
claims, and that they have a responsibility to build tools that promote truth
and inclusion.

~~~
harigov
I think it would gain much more credibility if this were done in the open in a
transparent manner. If there is a perfect fit for open source software, this
is it. If folks from facebook would like to invest time/effort that would be
great!

------
wrappertool
Dude... people dont even believe in the scientific method anymore, and
definitions and facts are themselves liberal bias. What is some tool gonna do
to convince those who have shut down entirely??

------
cryoshon
i've been interested in something similar for quite a while, although my
conception of it was more along the lines of a browser extension which would
identify weasel words, unsourced statements, and alert the user about
"experts" who are biased.

i'd be interested in being an editor/philsoopher for a project like this,
given that someone would need to determine what counts as bias and what
doesn't.

i do think that apps to improve critical thinking are direly needed...

------
gdulli
People would believe what they want to believe about your assessment of bias
just as they already believe what they want to believe in the news.

Caring about truth has to come from within.

------
alew1
What about a tool that allows you to find and start a chat with someone
currently reading a differently biased account of the same (or similar)
events? I can't count the number of times this election that I wished I could
discuss a Times article with a Trump supporter; I am sure there are plenty who
wish they could tell me about the contents of a Breitbart article.

------
sfrailsdev
I think it would be best to start with a small feature. For example, build a
classification tool seeing if perspectives of both sides of an issue are
interviewed and quoted. Open source it along with your dataset.

We need to build more composable machine learning based tools, and then we can
use machine learning on their results to determine which serve which purposes
best.

------
twelvechairs
Another suggestion - a clear description of both author and publisher funding
and political links which are likely to lead to bias.

------
splawn
You might want to monitor the progress unfolding on this list of dubious news
sites. It seems relevant to your endeavor.

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/mobilebasic)

------
timdavila
Related to this, have you seen the Wall Street Journals red/blue feeds,
straight from the Facebook API?

[http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/](http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-
feed-red-feed/)

Just seeing articles on the extreme side of each topic right next to each
other shocked me.

------
realworldview
Unfortunately it often appears that one person's bias is another's fodder.
Dailymail.com is incredibly astute and manipulative—that's their business.
Bias? Of course, and they know it. They would tell you, I suspect, that they
are in the bias business.

Is there a solution? A biasometer?

------
spobin
Not quite the same thing but Rbutr
([http://www.rbutr.com/](http://www.rbutr.com/)) was features on HN a while
back.

In their own words:

"rbutr tells you when the webpage you are viewing has been disputed, rebutted
or contradicted elsewhere on the internet."

------
arisAlexis
A while ago I wrote this about the subject. Maybe you would like to read it
“The New Editors” @arisAlexis [https://medium.com/@arisAlexis/the-new-
editors-122eeb57880d](https://medium.com/@arisAlexis/the-new-
editors-122eeb57880d)

------
bjt2n3904
Why is everyone suddenly convinced we can do this now? How do you guarantee
your algorithm is without bias?

~~~
harigov
We go with the assumption that everything is biased. The idea is only to
surface the biases so you can make your own informed opinions.

------
NumberCruncher
Sorry for the offtopic, but I have to post this evergreen text:

>> There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs
to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the
election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth
of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their
refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is much better: there’s no
recency bias (where you only remember the crimes reported in the past couple
months), you get to hear both sides of the story after the investigation has
died down, you can actually think about the issues instead of worrying about
the politics.

Source:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

~~~
grzm
This just passes the buck to the voters guide. You still have issues of bias
and misinformation. You may save a bit by being able to wait to see more
information come in, but for some issues, you do want to know what's going on
right now so you can act.

~~~
NumberCruncher
Did you read the post I linked in? It's says that the incoming information
aka. news are irrelevant to our life and we should just ignore them. There are
no real issues you have to act on. If a hurricane is coming, you will know it
without reading the news.

Therefore bias and misinformation are also irrelevant to our life.

Just to have a counterpoint to this news obsessed discussion.

~~~
grzm
Yes, I did read the post you linked to. I am also responding to the quote you
provided. I should think that you quoted it because you thought it was
particularly relevant or representative, did you not?

Edited to add: I also found it frustrating that a post arguing against reading
the news includes a "You should follow me on twitter here" link at the bottom.

 _Please don 't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even
read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions
that."_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
NumberCruncher
>> I should think that you quoted it because you thought it was particularly
relevant or representative, did you not?

And that's why I started it with "sorry for the offtopic". You do not always
read what you want to but what you have to.

I just try to correct the bias I am concerned about. Lessons learned:

\- bias is subjective

\- there are people who like to stay in their own biased world

Am I relevant enough now?

Cheers!

~~~
grzm
I understood your "Sorry for the offtopic" to refer to your entire comment. I
expected the quote to be relevant or representative with respect to the post
_you_ linked to.

------
chandanrai
> What if we had a tool that is delivered as a browser extension, that can
> show links to alternate views (think URL links) of the exact same topic that
> you are reading?

The Pocket Browser Extension already does that.

------
sgwealti
[http://www.newstrust.net/](http://www.newstrust.net/) when it was around was
pretty good. It never really got traction though.

------
jackmott
Don't look for bias, just look for right or wrong.

~~~
SuperPaintMan
Easier said then done. If this election cycle didn't showcase a post-truth
condition I don't know what will.

------
sghjknbcdryu
SAAS to Facebook, etc. They can filter for low-bias news and help the zucc's
PR.

------
huevosabio
I would be interested (I was pondering on the same idea), how should we
proceed?

~~~
harigov
Hey huevosabio, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.

~~~
huevosabio
Thanks! I sent you an email.

------
quantumhobbit
I don't know how much time I have but I would love to contribute somehow.

~~~
harigov
Hey quantumhobbit, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.

------
blipblop
harigov: very interested. you should setup a Discord channel to discuss
further.

~~~
harigov
Hey blipblop, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.

------
Mz
_I believe the internet is contributing to echo chambers because of filter
bubbles._

People hear what they want to hear. If they are intentionally seeking out (or
actively trying to create) echo chambers, you can't really stop that.

Additionally, studies consistently show that most people are pro choice. They
also consistently show that most people are anti abortion.

In other words, no one is pro abortion. No one is " _for_ killing unborn
babies." But some people frame the political policies in terms of rights of
the mother to choose and some frame it in terms of rights of the unborn to
live.

There is no easy answer here. Pretty much everyone thinks that abortion should
be a last resort, not some kind of primary method of birth control. But there
is enormous fighting about exactly where and how to draw the line on who,
what, when, where and how.

So one of the problems you will find is that when you try to get "both sides"
of _any_ argument (abortion is merely _one_ example here):

A) Either they are talking about very different foundational ideas such that
it is kind of disingenuous to frame them as "opposing arguments" or

B) You have a set of people with such narrow views that they can only conceive
of two possible options here and the real answer is to be looking for "a third
way."

I think a better answer is to write about a broader point of view that helps
promote a non-binary conversation and thought process and that helps promote
that "third way" that has some hope of addressing real concerns for "both
sides."

It's extremely problematic to try to divide more than 300 million people into
two camps and pretend that the millions of individuals making up each "camp"
all uniformly agree with each other. Yes, people choose sides in order to try
to exercise power. But that doesn't mean the camps really authentically
represent the full views and sets of positions of any of their members, much
less all (of their members).

I think your desire to create this is rooted in good intentions, but I suspect
that something like this will just help entrench the "war" by further
promoting the idea that there are, in fact, two camps and only two camps and
every American needs to choose one. I realize that is not what you desire to
do, but that may well be the result.

I find that trying to have meaningful and nuanced discussion with almost
anyone at all (other than my sons) is incredibly hard because most people want
to peg me as either "for" what they are for or "against" them. This leaves no
room for positing a third way at all, much less a potential fourth, fifth or
Nth way.

I choose to blog as my small pebble of contribution towards trying to combat
the either/or thinking and trying to posit new mental models for old problems.

If you do start something, I would be happy to give feedback or have some kind
of limited (probably short term/one time) role in its development. I am not
looking for an on-going time commitment. Furthermore, although I support your
position that it "will be" open source, I see zero reason why this must be
non-profit. I think this is just another example of common thought patterns
that somehow being non-profit means it will be done for the right reasons, in
the right way, etc and this is absolutely not in any way guaranteed.

------
japanese_donald
How do you actually do this without being biased yourself? One person's
reality is another person's bias.

~~~
grzm
Similar to how science works. Build it with the fact that you have bias in
mind, and keep your mind open to criticism, keep testing the system as best
you can to test whether it's susceptible to any kind of bias you can think of,
and remember it's always going to be an open question. Healthy skepticism.
Keeping the work in the open is pretty important, too.

------
MK999
The supposed filter bubble theory is that I (and others) didn't vote for HRC
because we are not exposed to the liberal point of view?

FALSE. LAUGHABLY FALSE. FALSE FALSE FALSE.

Let's make up a term called liberal privilege, the privilege to have your
views reflected on all major US channels (CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, BBC, NYT,
WaPo... etc.) ALL OF THE TIME.

