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Ground News Bias Checker — Browser extension which exposes media bias as you browse.
If you read your news on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or any news site, we’ll let you know who else is covering the story and how reporting differs between sources from across the political spectrum.
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Replies
Varun Dave
Love this and much needed. I experienced that not all news articles show bias checker under it, even if they are from the same news source on Twitter, e.g. under Sky News or BBC News feed, I see bias checker on some of their articles, but not all. @harleen
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@varundave Hi Varun - thanks for letting us know about this. Originally, stories that were only covered by one source did not generate any coverage data. Our newest update will enable the extension to show some data for stories only being reported on one source, like the bias data for that one outlet.
I'm a newsie and a huge fan of Ground News — use it frequently to defuse arguments with friends.
@mikeorren Thanks Mike! Hopefully the new extension can help you and your staff at Dallas News.
Ok @harleen I was a little skeptical at first about what this app did. I was worried there was going to be a biases.
What I love about the product is.
1. It's very easy to use.
2. It just gives you the facts for where an article has been published and a "general breakdown of " Left, Right and Central".
3. It gives me a sense of what's "general news" vs. "politically driven articles" (on both sides).
Question for you..... how do you determine if a source is Right, Left or Center? I get there are the obvious ones, but what about the others?
Great work!
Thanks Eric! Glad to have you onboard. Happy to explain our bias rating methodology as well.
The bias ratings you see on Ground are not our team's personal assessment. We wanted to keep our team's subjective opinions out of the app in order to give our readers the most objective view of bias possible. All bias data is from 3rd party NPO's dedicated to monitoring and rating news outlets along the political spectrum. You can read more about this here: https://ground.news/about-bias-r...
@mikestaub Hi Mike. The code for the extension isn't open source. Our business model is to sell subscriptions to our product (see https://ground.news/subscribe) and we consciously choose not to monetize our users' data. The subscriptions for our mobile and web apps are optional but unlock deeper coverage analysis features and the ability to use your account cross-platform.
Eager to try, but the safari extension download buttons on your website don't seem to work
@javaamonde Unfortunately, the safari extension hasn't been approved by Apple yet. We are hoping it will be available in the next few days 🤞
This is really interesting - great job!
1 Comment though - is there any chance we could have an option to switch the colours? For most of us outside of the US, red=left wing and blue=right wing, so it's a bit confusing.
@henrypootel Thanks Josh! We plan to add an option to invert the colours. Hopefully the update will clear up some confusion for users beyond the US. We're actually a Canadian company, so the feature will help us out as well 😅
Hey 👋🏽 I’m Harleen. Ex-NASA 🚀 Engineer and Ground News CEO.
Our iOS, Android & Web App have helped 150,000+ users fight biased news.
I’m excited to launch the Ground News Bias Checker Browser Extension.
➡️ Why we created it:
❗️ If you watched the Social Dilemma and were terrified (I was too), you know just how dangerous filter bubbles can be and that social media has quickly become an echo chamber.
It’s very hard to see another perspective when we are all getting fed biased “made for us” news that reinforces our own opinions and perspectives rather than challenging us to see another.
The web extension can burst your bubble and enable you to easily access a myriad of different perspectives for every news story. Whether your routine is to check in on Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit, Ground News can uncover the hidden bias in your news feed.
➡️ How it works:
✅ Instantly tell you the media bias distribution of any story (% of coverage from sources on the left, right and center). The bias data is overlaid on your social media feed so you never have to disrupt your news browsing to see the underlying bias.
✅ Give you easy access to media bias data and other perspectives when you read an article on over 50,000+ news sites.
✅ With only one click, the extension enables you to access an aggregation of how other sources are reporting on the story. From here, you can easily compare how headlines and coverage differ among sources from across the political spectrum.
The Bias Checker by Ground News is free to download for Chrome & Firefox. For even deeper coverage analysis features, join 150,000+ users and download our award-winning mobile app for iOS & Android.
We’d love for you to check it out and let us know what you think! I’ll be here answering questions, or you can reach out directly to feedback@ground.news
Discover us on the web:
➡️ Chrome Web Store: https://check.ground.news/Chrome...
➡️ Mozilla Add-On Store: https://check.ground.news/FireFo...
➡️ Website: https://check.ground.news/WebApp...
➡️ iOS/Android App: https://check.ground.news/iOSAnd...
➡️ About us: https://about.ground.news/
I look impressive this tool! Congrats for this job, hope you release more tools like this.
@pavel_mazuelas Thanks! We have a lot of big plans for the future, follow our socials for more exciting announcements.
This saves me time looking at multiple sources about a story. Upgraded to Pro. Thanks for all the time saved. :)
@stef_b Thanks for subscribing and supporting us Stef! Happy to hear we made reading the news a bit easier for you :)
Good idea - flawed implementation due to inaccurate ratings and limited coverage. I tested this app on my Facebook feed. It failed to comment on the majority of political posts, as it seems limited to only mainstream media articles (use of machine learning could extend that). The things it flagged as "left wing bias" were mostly wrong -- e.g. the UK Government (gov.uk) was flagged as "100% left-wing biased". I wish!
Wow, this looks great. Hope it actually works, and supports languages other than English :) Will try this extension.
So cool - had this recommended to me by a friend. I love the pop up bar on the top. I wish we had this for the last election! Any plans for the future?
@turner_tobin Thanks to your friend for sending you our way! We plan to add more features to the browser extension and expand its capabilities beyond Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and news sites. We're also making some major changes to our mobile app as well - stay tuned!
@mjltan Articles are tagged if we can find other sources that are reporting on that story. The criteria is the same across all platforms and the difference may just be due to the content that is common on each site. Twitter and Reddit are more news focused, so the extension really shines on those two sites.
Especially after seeing the social dilemma, I think a tool that provides further insights behind the social feeds we consume daily is much needed. Love the fact that this integrates right within my news feed without having to leave to a different site. Congrats on creating this!
@crystalchavez1 Thanks Crystal! Watching the Social Dilemma was quite jarring. We hope that our tool can help unmask media bias and educate people on the importance of adopting a balanced news diet.
This is super relevant and useful. Does this work within the Facebook app on mobile when I install this?
@rogermartin6 The web extension currently only works on Facebook's desktop site. If you're looking for a great way to read the news on your phone - I highly recommend the Ground News App!
Very good idea! But there is no way I'm installing a browser extension with full access to my content without knowing more about the business model of the product.
@clement_prevost Our business model is to sell subscriptions to our product (see https://ground.news/subscribe) and we consciously choose not to monetize our users' data. The subscriptions for our mobile and web apps are optional but unlock deeper coverage analysis features and the ability to use your account cross-platform.
@amrita_m The bias ratings are not our personal assessment of bias. All bias data is from 3rd party NPO's dedicated to monitoring and rating news outlets along the political spectrum. You can read more about our methodology here: https://ground.news/about-bias-r...
People must be really desperate about the upcoming USA election. The grading of this is absurd - not unless it's analyzing financial sponsors of news sources.
@gittel_marcus This is the most important point and far more revealing about the News source versus (another) labeled ideology product. Keep in mind on Crunchbase, Facebook and Ryerson University are listed as lead investors, what are the financial incentives behind free/paid user data from this product?
@gittel_marcus The bias ratings on site our come from 3rd party NPO's dedicated to monitoring and rating news outlets along the political spectrum. We take an average of these 3 ratings: mediabiasfactcheck.com, allsides.com, and adfontesmedia.com. These sites each have their methodology listed on their website if you're interested.
You can read more about our methodology here: https://about.ground.news/about-...
@harleen the third party sites have a clear agenda in the upcoming election. When they describe their methodology, they themselves admit it's just subjective.
There is no such thing as an unbiased news source. It is possible that even the most outrageous media channel runs an accurate story . The only reason these third parties exist is to validate failing media channels, regardless of whether they publish anything relevant or true.
News should be judged on whether or not it successfully makes its point. Not on the reputation accorded by some subjective third party.
@gittel_marcus @ravi_bajnath Hi Ravi, none of those companies are investors or own a stake in Ground News. Ryerson University's School of Journalism in collaboration with the Facebook Journalism Project gives grants to innovative companies in the News space, but there is no equity or stake exchanged. Full transparency, we have also received credits and grants from Big Tech such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud but none of these companies have ANY say in our product or how we treat user data. Our business model is to sell subscriptions to our product (see https://ground.news/subscribe) and we consciously choose not to monetize our subscribers' data. This browser extension for now is a stand-alone freebie to show people the value of our other products and services.