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Microsoft Developing News Sorting Based On Political Bias

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the next-measure-the-magnitude-of-political-affiliation dept.

wiredog writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Microsoft is developing a program that classifies news stories according to whether liberal or conservative bloggers are linking to them and also measures the 'emotional intensity' based on the frequency of keywords in the blog posts." If you would like to jump right to the tool you can check out "Blews" on the Microsoft site.

11 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Perfect... by calebt3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because we all know that the most effective way to be informed is by only talking with and listening to people you already agree with. /sarcasm

    1. Re:Perfect... by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh come on, where's your engineer's curiosity? This isn't to actually use, it's just a cool technoloogy. Come on admit it, even microsoft can throw together some pretty neat stuff. Besides a lot of people like reading bloggers or watching news relevant to their ideology's interests. For example my parents can't stand CNN because of a percieved liberal bias, so they only watch FOX news. yeah they already agree with everything said but it's still a news source that reports current events and they'd rather get current events from a conservative spin.

    2. Re:Perfect... by Loke+the+Dog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but I don't see where it says this would only give you liberal opinions if you read the liberal-tagged news. On the contrary, it will give you what other liberals blog about, and that is probably more often than not things that they do not agree with.

      Besides, it does say it offers the option to see things "from the other side" by giving you the same story but with the oposite tag, and that could be very useful.

    3. Re:Perfect... by psychodelicacy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And this tool would allow you to do that, right? Seems like it could be very useful to those of us who want to know how the other side thinks - whatever that "other side" is. Of course, it would also handily package up the news for those who only want to hear from their own side, but at least it might get them reading more than one source. It's safe to stick to, say, Fox or CNN if you know that's what you like to hear, but if someone were to give you a list of other sites that would probably also suit your perspective it might encourage you to branch out a little more.

      --
      A closed mouth gathers no foot.
    4. Re:Perfect... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it was Chris Rock who said it best:

      The whole country's got a fucked up mentality. We all got a gang mentality. Republicans are fucking idiots. Democrats are fucking idiots. Conservatives are idiots and liberals are idiots.

      Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear the issue is a fucking fool. Everybody, nah, nah, nah, everybody is so busy wanting to be down with a gang! I'm a conservative! I'm a liberal! I'm a conservative! It's bullshit!

      Be a fucking person. Listen. Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion.

      No normal decent person is one thing. OK!?! I got some shit I'm conservative about, I got some shit I'm liberal about. Crime - I'm conservative. Prostitution - I'm liberal.

      Keep in mind, this was a comedy show, and the delivery was actually pretty hilarious. But I think it applies.

      Sorting all news into one thing or another is just an extension of this mentality, and it is harmful. Would you tolerate it if they sorted it into Black News and White News? Or into News for Women, and News for Men? Put the gardening and housekeeping on News for Women, and the tech and business stuff on News for Men...

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    5. Re:Perfect... by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The truth has a liberal bias.

      Only when the listener has a liberal bias.

      It's pithy little witticisms like these that initially made me suspicious of the "intelligent == liberal" paradigm. Intelligence doesn't rely on the appearance of being clever.

  2. Not exactly... by boarder8925 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    BLEWS also offers a "see the view from the other side" functionality, enabling a reader to compare different views on the same story from different sides of the political spectrum.
    In reality, most people will use this tool as a quick way to avoid articles they don't want to read. "Opposing/Differing viewpoint? Screw that, moving on!"
    --
    Keep your eyes to the sky.
    1. Re:Not exactly... by sayfawa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, a lot of people will talk about the 'net as if it's this great thing that gets all kinds of different people together for dialogue and understanding, but in reality it just makes it easier for people with fucked up ideas and values to find each other and convince each other that they are right and everyone else is wrong. It just leads to even more polarization. This MS thing is just a symptom of that.

      And I don't try to pretend that I'm not affected by this phenomena either. The only forums I frequent are technocrat, gentoo otw and here. So it becomes too easy to believe that my views are mainstream and 100% correct. But sometimes I have a moment of clarity and realize that it is only because I'm mostly talking to people with the same views (except for those KDE fuckers) and that they are just reinforcing my predispositions. A good place to go for a reality check is one of those hardcore Christian forums, where the kind of people that we call nutcases hang out, and then realize that we are just as nutty to them as they are to us.

      --
      Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
  3. Manufacturing consent with Power Point by gnutoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This new project highlights the absurdity of our two party system and past media inadequacies. The whole world is reduced to two schools of thought "conservative" and "liberal" with an additional dimension for "emotion". This is perfect for the manufactured consent way of doing things where issues are displayed without depth and championed by more or less annoying, emotional "experts". Rational thought is completely cut off, because anything outside of the "mainstream" represented by the extremes is automatically smeared as the unworkable product of starry eyed idealists or terrorists. So, the complexity of the real world is eliminated and policy is made by those controlling the media. The correct opinion for the good little sheeple will be found right in the middle of the pretty, Vista style chart.

    No thanks, Microsoft, I'll keep reading blogs and thinking for myself. MSNBC never showed me where the good ones were and I doubt they will in the future. You can't run an honest search engine, so there's no way in hell I'll trust your company to tell me how to vote.

  4. Oh come on. by gnutoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a substitute for analysis like a big mac is a substitute for food. The world is far more intersting than a three column spreadsheet and there are always more than two ways to look at any issue. Trusting Microsoft's choice of events and opinions is a sure way to remain ignorant and be guided like sheep to the traditional media slaughter.

    Google does a much better job by scraping titles and sentences coherently. Especially important is their people involved feedback. Trying to force all of that into "Democrat" and "Republican" is worse than useless, it's misleading and that's why Google never did it.

  5. Great by Locklin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Great, software that will make people more close minded, less informed, and just generally less intelligent. Oh wait, did you say it came from Microsoft?

    --
    "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom