I disagree, and that's part of the reason I'm so strongly opposed to Lemmy.World's use of Dave Van Zandt's site in their bot. Fact-checking is an essential tool in fighting the waves of fake news polluting the public discourse. But if that fact-checking is partisan, then it only acerbates the problem of people divided on the basics of a shared reality.
This is why a consortium of fact-checking institutions have joined together to form the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and laid out a code of principles. You can find a list of signatories as well as vetted organizations on their website. You can read more about those principles here.
MBFC is not a signatory to the IFCN code of principles. As a partisan organization, it violates the standards that journalists have recognized as essential to restoring trust in the veracity of the news. Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all. Just like how the proliferation of fake news undermines the authority of journalism, the growing popularity of a fact-checking site by a political hack like Dave M. Van Zandt undermines the authority of non-partisan fact-checking institutions in the public consciousness.
MBFC and Ad Fontes are both part of the same grift, to artificially raise the value of right-wing journalism, while artificially denigrating left-wing journalism, so their maps of media come out looking like a horseshoe with the apex dominated by corporate advertising conglomerates that use journalism as their hook.
The CEOs of conglomerates will happily fund this propaganda, and a surprising number of people will pay good money to have the 'horseshoe theory' lie repeated back to them.
This is part of the reason why sites like MBFC are so toxic. They use non-partisan fact-checking institutions to bolster their credibility, while holding none of the standards. Then they use that laundered credibility to gatekeep minority and politically inconvenient voices.
It should be noted that despite no non-partisan fact checkers are listed on MBFC's site as raising concerns about the The Cradle's credibility, Dave M. Van Zandt has arbitrarily placed it in the "Factual Reporting: Mixed" and "Credibility: Medium" categories. One of the concerns he posits is The Cradle's 'lack of transparency,' but the weird right-wing guy who decides these ratings also lacks any transparency themselves in the method he used to come to that conclusion.
Fact checking should increase media literacy and identify bad actors that fabricate news, not justify the destruction of a diverse and healthy media environment.
I don't trust MBFC to tell me anything useful about left-leaning sources, or discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but if a right-biased credibility gatekeeper tells me a site I've never encountered before is far-right, I do consider that useful.
Just like every good lie has a little bit of truth in it, MBFC wouldn't be able to spin its bullshit as well without usurping the credibility of real fact-checking organizations.
This bot comment adds nothing of value and only wastes page space, which is actually an improvement over the bot's typical function. MBFC is a threat to media literacy on Lemmy.
Fact-checking is an essential tool in fighting the waves of fake news polluting the public discourse. But if that fact-checking is partisan, then it only acerbates the problem of people divided on the basics of a shared reality.
This is why a consortium of fact-checking institutions have joined together to form the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and laid out a code of principles. You can find a list of signatories as well as vetted organizations on their website.
MBFC is not a signatory to the IFCN code of principles. As a partisan organization, it violates the standards that journalists have recognized as essential to restoring trust in the veracity of the news. Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all. Just like how the proliferation of fake news undermines the authority of journalism, the growing popularity of a fact-checking site by a political hack like MBFC's man behind the curtain, Dave M. Van Zandt, undermines the authority of non-partisan fact-checking institutions in the public consciousness.
If you'd like to see it discussed elsewhere, you're welcome to cross-post it.
This is part of culture clash between old social media culture and Fediverse norms. If moderators choose to censor this discussion as well, it's only going to get bigger.