The barrage began around midnight and continued beyond daybreak in what appeared to be Russia's biggest attack against Ukraine in weeks.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/qwOaT

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.euronews.com%2Fmy-europe%2F2024%2F08%2F26%2Frussian-missiles-hit-energy-infrastructure-in-more-than-half-of-ukraines-regions

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 months ago

    From the federated comments:

    Show

    Liberals out here becoming Holden Bloodfeast and they still don't think they're indoctrinated

    Show

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Well, now I know SpinScore isn't a site I care about:

    Partisan

    Score: 3 Explanation: The article primarily reflects Ukrainian perspectives and narratives while omitting Russian viewpoints. Suggestion: Include statements from Russian officials regarding the missile strikes for balance.

    (The rest of the analysis continues in a similar vein.)

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
        ·
        3 months ago

        So I've just gone and done some reading based on this comment to try to understand how it is a rebuttal to anything I've said, and although there were some details I wasn't aware of, I'm still not seeing it. You can reply now to re-emphasize my stupidity whenever you are ready.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
          ·
          3 months ago

          I was simply making a joke about the idea that the Russian perspective should be thrown out and we should only listen to Western-Aligned sources because the latter were insisting in the wake of the blast that Russia blew up its own pipeline while Russia said that they obviously weren't.

          A better example might have been the prison full of Azovites that got rocketed, but I was going for something that I was sure anyone who gave a shit about Ukraine/Russia, even from a superficial culture war perspective, would be familiar with.

          • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            My expectation was that it was evidence of a disagreement with my comments sourced with something other than a swipe at my general intellect or capability, but I see my standards were too high. I never made a statement that the Russian perspective should never be listened to, my statements were very specific to this event.

    • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
      hexagon
      M
      ·
      3 months ago

      That's the point of the site. It doesn't have any preference and just points out the lack of different perspectives instead of saying that a single perspective is correct. You are free to have your own opinion and filter the content through your own lens while knowing which facts are verified, unverified or misleading.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        3 months ago

        I actually agree with it in this case that excluding what Russia has said about this is silly at best, but Media Bias Fact Check-style websites aren't actually free of bias, they are just question-begging a certain paradigm.

        Like, if an article covering the US election only mentioned what Republicans have to say, that doesn't mean the only other viewpoint it needs is what Democrats have to say; there is more to an issue than what the two most influential parties have to say, but to say that you need those two perspectives while not advocating for the Greens or, say, one of the communist parties, is already assuming many different positions on foreign intervention, environmental policy, and so on, where the two parties mostly agree.

        Likewise, depending on where it is, there are various popular groups throughout Ukraine and Russia that might have a substantially different perspective that is closer to the truth.

        • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
          hexagon
          M
          ·
          3 months ago

          <...> but Media Bias Fact Check-style websites aren't actually free of bias <...>

          Hence, me including SpinScore link to the articles I post. Not only it evaluates each article content and not the site, but it also removes human bias element from the equation.

          • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
            ·
            3 months ago

            Hence, me including SpinScore link to the articles I post. Not only it evaluates each article content and not the site, but it also removes human bias element from the equation

            Those glorified chatbots don't fall out of coconut trees, the fact that their very existence was designed by human hands explicitly blends human bias into them.

            The belief in unbiasness is a form of ethereal idealism that is unattached to material reality and willing faith in its ephemeral existence blinds the individual to biases that disguise itself as anything but.

            • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
              hexagon
              M
              ·
              3 months ago

              Your generalizations aren't helpful. I'm not even sure to understand how it works based on your comment.

              If you want to say that SpinScore is a bad tool, you will need to provide some examples.

              • boboblaw [he/him, they/them]
                ·
                3 months ago

                It's not that it's a bad tool, it's that

                it also removes human bias element from the equation

                is an impossible standard.

                • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
                  hexagon
                  M
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Depends on how you define the standard. It does what it says on the tin. No personal bias, conscious or subconscious, are not present on SpinScore as opposed to every other fact checking site/database. It only interprets text in context and checks it against primary sources, which humans are incapable of doing due to inherent biases and life experiences that shape our view.

          • MaeBorowski [she/her]
            ·
            3 months ago

            but it also removes human bias element from the equation

            That is not possible, and to pretend that it is is itself a significant bias.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            I don't know how to explain to you that perspective is a problem that can't be escaped by using machines. It's like using video in place of vision; yeah, there are obviously plenty of cases where it's helpful for a specific task, but fundamentally you are going from using a human to using something made by humans.

            From what I can glean immediately, this thing gets its idea of the "truth" from what is published on major new sites, like PBS, NYT, and such. As a result, what it can "verify" from circular citation becomes what is "true." In essence, it is a media consensus machine with some basic reading comprehension thrown in for people who can't read English well enough to determine if a statement is, for example, an expression of the authors feelings or a statement on facts of the world.

            • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
              hexagon
              M
              ·
              edit-2
              3 months ago

              It's not perfect, but it's better than anything else out there. Using your own brain will always be required, no tool will ever change that.

              And fact is not subjective, opinion is, and you seem to lump them together. And it uses primary sources for information verification, and those tend to be major outlets purely due to their size. Nobody else can afford to monitor all the governments, companies, and other official bodies and report about them.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                ·
                3 months ago

                And fact is not subjective, opinion is, and you seem to lump them together

                You say this about the comment in which I say:

                In essence, it is a media consensus machine with some basic reading comprehension thrown in for people who can't read English well enough to determine if a statement is, for example, an expression of the authors feelings or a statement on facts of the world.

                Not to mention that "whether something is a fact or not" or, more commonly, "what is the most likely explanation for what we are seeing," is typically not something you have practical access to, which is why you are reading about it, so what you are left with is not metaphysical truth, but testimony, which is very corruptible. I don't just mean this as a hypothetical, I mean that most outlets engage in an aggressive battle over a small minority of mostly-social subjects while operating in complete or near-complete agreement on many important topics.

                But even if we want to sidestep the issue of testimony mediating our access to metaphysical truth, there is still the question of which facts to include.

                Low-hanging fruit:

                https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-08-21/clinton-dnc-speech-harris-endorsement-joy

                ctrl+f "epstein": 0

                https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fstory%2F2024-08-21%2Fclinton-dnc-speech-harris-endorsement-joy

                ctrl+f "epstein": 0

                Seems like it's missing important information that it could at least mention in passing about the subject of the piece, but maybe that's just me. I guess it's all relative.

                And it uses primary sources for information verification, and those tend to be major outlets purely due to their size.

                Like I alluded to in mentioning "circular citation", very often news organizations aren't doing anything resembling original research in their articles. They are just publishing what other articles already said.

                But you are still missing that this is question-begging the correctness of the media, even though they have over and over been shown to be quite willing to work together to push atrocity propaganda and all kinds of nonsense.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
        ·
        3 months ago

        That’s the point of the site. It doesn’t have any preference and just points out the lack of different perspectives instead of saying that a single perspective is correct.

        Not presenting viewpoints of the Russians who shot the missles about how they feel about shooting the missles is not a lack of balance.

        • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
          hexagon
          M
          ·
          3 months ago

          Isn't it? That's what neutral means. But, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with not including their perspective in this article. The point of the site, is to let you decide what is relevant, instead of someone else making that decision and pushing it down your throat.

          People keep saying that everything is biased, but when confronted with what no bias looks like, they see that bias is not so bad as long as people are aware of it.

          • D61 [any]
            ·
            3 months ago

            I-am-very-smart: Ukrainian sources "claim" that Russian missiles struck many places in Ukraine. There are no Russian sources regarding this claim. Therefore I conclude that the missile attack didn't happen.

            also

            I-am-very-smart: Why yes, my brain is completely smooth, very aerodynamic!

          • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            It has no relevance. Russians shot missiles into Ukraine. The facts of the matter are that Russians are the aggressors here, and this is a war entirely of their making. The Ukrainian perspective about the effects of the missile attack on them is what matters to an article about the missile attack on Ukraine.

            Not including the Russian perspective isn't evidence of bias, it's omitting things which don't matter. We already know that Russia invaded Ukraine, and that Russia will rubble-ize it rather than surrender unless they are aggressively beaten back by Ukraine.

            You'll notice I didn't complain about the parts where they pick on the language used in the article - because those are valid complaints. Expecting the article to include the Russian perspective about the smoking craters they left all across Ukraine is patently ridiculous.

            Sometimes facts are just facts. Russia is objectively the nation who started the war, they are objectively the aggressors, and they are objectively responsible for all related death and destruction. We don't need to be sure we include a sentence saying, "And by the way the Russians did this because they would really like to control Ukraine" every time - that's part of the setting.

            • Kuori [she/her]
              ·
              3 months ago

              Russians are the aggressors here, and this is a war entirely of their making

              "history began yesterday" i-love-not-thinking

              • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
                ·
                3 months ago

                If you've got something more than rhetorical snark to tell me why I'm wrong, I'm happy to hear it.

            • MaeBorowski [she/her]
              ·
              3 months ago

              The facts of the matter are that Russians are the aggressors here

              I'm glad you let us know in your 3rd sentence that you have no idea what a fact even is and that the rest of your gibberish comment can be immediately discarded. What a cringe, foolish thing to say. picard

              • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
                ·
                3 months ago

                Hey ad homs are a good go-to when you encounter what you perceive as someone's ignorance, right? I find it wins hearts and minds without fail. Any time you want to explain to me how they are not the aggressors I'm all ears.

                • MaeBorowski [she/her]
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Do you know what an ad hominem even is? Apparently not, since nowhere in my comment did I use one. Like there was nothing I said that even came close to an ad hominem but even if there was, this isn't junior high debate club, nerd.

                  As for you wanting me to explain to you the fact that Russia is not the aggressor in this conflict, it's hard to know where to even start, in part because I don't know how deep your ignorance of history and geopolitics is or what specific pieces of propaganda you believe, but also because there is a hell of a lot of history and context there to cover when answering such a broad question as "why is Russia not the aggressor?" It's a huge thing to ask someone, not unlike saying to some stranger on the net "Hey, I believe that aliens actually built the pyramids. No? Well if you want to explain that they didn't, I'm all ears." It's saying "My mind is made up on some bullshit, but you challenged it, so feel free to explain ancient Egyptian history, their socioeconomics, their technological capabilities, and other entire disciplines as the necessary context that together would make it clear that my belief is based in ignorance." Just like in that scenario, there is quite a lot I could talk about to try to get you to recognize the reality of the situation, even though it's not my job to educate you. So without going into detail, off the top of my head, here are some of the things I could talk about.

                  I could talk about NATO and how even since the fall of the Soviet Union (which was the ostensible reason for the existence of NATO in the first place) it continued to threaten and antagonize Russia, encircling it with military bases and encroaching upon it with missile systems despite Russia's requests for economic alliances and even to join the bloc, but how the response of NATO was to ramp up using military threats. I could elaborate about how this was to force Russia to bend the knee even more than it already had, the ultimate goal being complete subjugation to western economic interests agsinst the interests or will of the people of Russia. But I don't expect that would impress most western liberals who already have their mind made up that Russia is, was, and always will be made up of bad guys, so instead I could talk about the openly US-backed coup in Ukraine that removed the democratically elected party from power and replaced it with literal neo-nazi fascists specifically for the reason that those nazis were anti-Russia. I could talk about how that fascist regime is who is in power now (as they were when Russia entered the conflict) and how they banned all opposition parties, making any that are even remotely pro-Russia illegal and also indefinitely suspended elections. I could talk about how even before the coup, for years NATO had been arming and training neo-nazi terrorist militias as proxy fighting forces (a very common tactic btw) in Ukraine for the purpose of provoking a military conflict with Russia. I could talk about how that fascist regime immediately started an ethnic cleansing campaign in eastern Ukraine of the Russian-speaking populace there. I could talk about how this was escalated into civil war long before February of 2022 and how those regions attempted to become breakaway republics, with Ukraine (rather, the fascist regime ruling Ukraine, but who we all mean now when we talk of "Ukraine" as a political entity) continuously shelling these regions and murdering the civilians that lived there. I could talk about how Russia repeatedly tried to get all this to stop through diplomatic means, including the signing of famous agreements - agreements that not only Ukraine and their NATO backers ended up completely ignoring, but that even western leaders openly admitted they had no intent of honoring and were only made so that they could delay Russia from taking any action to stop the ethnic cleansing, allowing the fascists more time to militarize and slaughter Russian-speakers unopposed. I could talk about how Russia was finally forced to intervene in an ongoing civil war, but how all the dumbass western libs call this an "unprovoked invasion" and instead of seeing the complex economic and political history, let alone the fact that the US had been trying to force something like this to happen, like to pretend it was some ravanchist scheme of that dastardly Putin. And there's still a ton that that I forgot to mention even as a topic I could talk about. But an actual understanding of these things should make it clear to anyone who is both honest and paying attention that Russia is indeed not the aggressor.

                    • MaeBorowski [she/her]
                      ·
                      3 months ago

                      Bye! As you slink away, embarrassed to have been so schooled, I want to thank you for proving once again that all "rUzZia is the AgResSSSSoR!" libs are intellectually vacuous and willfully incapable of learning anything about the real world whenever something challenges their simplistic, infantile understanding of it. pathetic

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
              ·
              3 months ago

              Russia is objectively the nation who started the war,

              The war began 8 years before Russia invaded, it's just that Russia's invasion is the only thing most countries cared/care about.