
ML-powered newspaper for showing news from many political perspectives - jadk157
https://knowherenews.com/
======
raleighm
Well done. As others noted, I feared worse based on the headline.

But I think it's really important to replace the "left bias"<>"right bias"
slider with a button and text field that simply requests users to report non-
neutrality in the write-up, without identifying it as "left" or "right".

Reduction to left/right is rarely helpful and often unhelpful. For most issues
complex/significant enough to warrant headline, there isn't -- or shouldn't be
-- a monolithic "left" or "right" position one could be biased towards.

Is an authoritarian bias left or right? Is a populist bias left or right? Or
is a pro-universal-income bias left or right? Is legislative supremacy as
opposed to judicial supremacy a left or right bias?

Better to get the yes/no data about perceived non-neutrality and then analyze
the qualitative comment.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Agreed. Without the two party political system with their entrenched
collection of positions, who knows what subgroups might appear. Low tax, high
spending (i.e. pro deficit)? Pro gay marriage, anti-abortion? Anti abortion,
but pro universal health care? Pro 2nd amendment, and pro universal income?
I've met all these people.

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raleighm
One limitation a site like this runs into is the fact that there's no such
thing as an "impartial" view on fundamental questions of value. For example,
what's the "impartial" view on whether to accept more refugees from war-torn
regions? Just because a view is sandwiched between others on whatever
particular spectrum chosen, or t uses dispassionate language, doesn't mean
it's "impartial". It's still a view argued from values. Stated differently,
for many (all?) questions there isn't a view that remains once we've filtered
out all of the "biased" views. To further complicate things, one's person's
"bias" is another's "commitment".

Perhaps best to refer to the default view here as "composite" rather than
"impartial".

~~~
Vivtek
Sure, there are no impartial answers to these questions. But there _can be_
impartial reporting on actual events taking place, and I think that's the goal
here.

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fulafel
The "Give our impartial story your own bias score" slider should be explicit
on whether it's just "far left for unbiased, far right for very biased", or if
the two ends of the slider represent some implied political positions.

~~~
dylan-knowhere
It was originally meant to reflect a left-right political axis for
controversial political stories. We publish spins with a few other types of
stances now (e.g. Hawk vs. Dove, Environment vs. Free Market) and the
explainer could use an update. Thanks for the feedback on it.

------
Bucephalus355
lol “perspective of the ML developer” maybe

Something like this can be great, but feel a hand curation would probably be
better served. Here’s a quick one, read Vox and then Breitbart. It’s an
intellectual rollercoaster ride.

~~~
blazespin
I agree, this is the best approach by far. You should read fox news and cnn to
get a balanced perspective. Though few minds can handle the cognitive
dissonance, sadly.

~~~
Angostura
Isn't this rather like suggesting you read anti-vax and vaccination proponents
or climate scientists and climate change deniers in order to get a 'balanced'
perspective?

~~~
dabbledash
It’s worse than that.

While you’re right that they aren’t equidistant from the political center, the
bigger issue is that they’re both incredibly dumb.

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mindviews
I'm worried based on some of the comments that people might be reading only
the Impartial view and not also the Left-bias and Right-bias versions of the
same story. I'd strongly suggest reading all three versions of a story before
using the slider to provide feedback on the various versions.

This is great work! I have wanted some version of this news site for years and
have been making sketches for how it would work. My working title for the site
is "Unspun" and very similar in spirit, except instead of the "Impartial"
view, the "center" would just be a list of facts about things that happened
that were referenced in both a Left and Right version of an article. And there
would be lines connecting the center facts to where they show up (if they do
at all) in the Left and Right articles. I'm pretty happy with this format, but
I still kind of want to see all 3 versions at the same time so I can cross-
reference. But I must like it because I just sent links to a whole bunch of
friends and family. :-)

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cheriot
Is bias the right thing to focus on? It's like we're all discovering that
journalists are imperfect humans just like the rest of us. Even if an article
is a mere list of cited facts there is judgement in which facts to include and
in what order to list them.

The better questions about a news source are

1) do they have integrity?

2) are they in touch with reality?

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phobosdeimos
I believe the purpose of newspapers is to give facts which allow me to make up
my own mind. Which is certainly harder than just spouting the party line I
guess. Take the Swedish Democrats: I agree with their stance on immigration
but their economic policy and their social conservative beliefs I do not
share.

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sghiassy
Interesting idea - though I feel like I’d need to know more about the
algorithm, ml inputs, limitations etc, etc before I could trust what I was
seeing was well rounded news.

I think the more transparent, even talking about current limitations, will
gain you more trust with users

~~~
dylan-knowhere
We've had plans to write some blog posts about it, but there are ultimately
only so many hours in the day. There is a _very_ high level explainer at
[https://knowherenews.com/how](https://knowherenews.com/how) but in broad
strokes, our backend incorporates many discrete pieces which: monitor for
breaking world events, structure metadata from news reports, search for
corroboration, identify spin-relevant information, and ultimately, draft
reports for a human editor to proof and possibly publish. We focus on American
politics for now rather than a larger slice of world events.

------
blazespin
I'm not sure how you can do this without getting sued for copyright
infringement.

~~~
dylan-knowhere
There are a team of human journalists and editors producing our coverage; the
ML side of things is akin to a research assistant who's always awake and
following what's going on.

~~~
johnpowell
Check the Musk story.

[https://knowherenews.com/event/51fd8dac-6a58-4d8b-ba14-83f0c...](https://knowherenews.com/event/51fd8dac-6a58-4d8b-ba14-83f0c1cc1796)

Compared to the story in Time.

[http://time.com/5389781/elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-
podcast/](http://time.com/5389781/elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-podcast/)

The first paragraph is the same.

And that was just the first one I tried.

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gfodor
Try this one! [http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-
feed](http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed)

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fulafel
Partial-impartial is a risky mode of thinking, since it can seduce you into
thinking that it's good to be impartial about all things. But there are
subjects like climate change and Donald Trump, where it's irresponsible
journalism to be "fair to both sides".

~~~
daenz
I assume by climate change you mean that since there is vast scientific
consensus that it is happening, we shouldn't give much time to the theories
that it isn't happening.

But what about Trump? Whether we like it or not, very nearly 50% of the voting
population voted for him (and how many millions more were fine not voting
against him by not voting at all). Are we to deny the POVs of the
representative that 10s of millions of Americans elected? It's not quite the
same argument as the overwhelming consensus on climate change.

EDIT>> In fact, I just realized that being deliberately unfair to Trump, as
you seem to be suggesting, just feeds into his constant portrayal of MSM being
"fake news", and only strengthens his position.

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shaki-dora
The content seems to be far better than what I had feared when reading the
headline.

But still: the idea that truth is somehow subject to voting, as expressed in
your slider, is far too post-modern for my tastes.

------
Vivtek
I see you bump levels based on story shares - but if I'm logged in with my
email instead of social media, I don't see how that will be tallied to my
account.

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dylan-knowhere
Cool to see our site on HN on a quiet Sunday! Shoot if you have any questions;
I realize the site doesn't go into much technical detail.

------
outis
I took a look at the current top item in "Politics":
[https://knowherenews.com/event/2471ce59-379e-40fc-87f7-fee77...](https://knowherenews.com/event/2471ce59-379e-40fc-87f7-fee7709e25d0)

The impartial version "feels" impartial enough in tone, whereas the other two
feel more openly partisan, the right one more than the left. But the story
becomes more complicated when you look at the actual content.

Impartial version:

\- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

\- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

\- Explains the Swedish political system.

\- Explains the alliances.

\- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.

\- Mentions that immigration is a central issue, but with no explanation.

\- Quotes Kakabaveh from the Left party, at length. Mentions that she
criticized Sweden's approach to integration, but with no details or
explanation. Mentions threats on her by racists and fundamentalists.

\- Is described as "impartial" at the bottom.

Left version:

\- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

\- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

\- Explains the Swedish political system.

\- Explains the alliances.

\- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.

\- Only mention of immigration is that SD is anti-immigrant.

\- Cites social democratic prime minister Löfven's criticism of SD.

\- Is described as "positive" at the bottom.

Right version:

\- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

\- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

\- Mentions that immigration and crime are top issues.

\- Explains immigration and crime issues.

\- Explains that SD "may not" be in the government.

\- Cites SD leader Åkesson on broadening that party's appeal.

\- Is described as "negative" at the bottom.

The left version goes into some detail on the workings of the Swedish
parliamentary system, which are given a mere nod in the right version. On the
other hand, the left version does not say anything at all about any issues
with immigration in Sweden, while the right version goes into quite a bit of
detail, and also discusses a crime issue, which is unmentioned elsewhere.

As for the impartial version, the content turns out to be basically the same
as in the left version. Immigration is mentioned, but without any explanation
of why it has become a political issue. And the politician cited is actually
from the Left party, which sounds farther left than the Social-Democrat PM
cited in the left version.

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illuminati1911
I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. I hope it will
deliver its promise, because right now I feel like there is nowhere to go for
neutral news. It's either "Omg look at what Trump is doing again! Nazis and
racists are everywhere!" leftwing-bs or Breitbart style rightwing garbage.

~~~
waterphone
One of those is based in fact and reality, the other is not. The reason you're
having a hard time finding "neutral" news is because reality is not inherently
neutral.

~~~
illuminati1911
What is? I don't think I gave any specific examples or are you implying that
other side political propaganda is completely based of "facts and reality"?

By neutrality I mean the facts and reality. Reality is inherently real and not
up for negotiation. I just want to know what has happened in the world without
any additional comments/thoughts/propaganda etc. by the journalist.

