When I saw the announcement about a browser plugin that could alert you to bias in news articles, I got quite excited.
We hear so much about bias and fake news, I thought this would be a fantastic tool to test out. And with the monumental US election, I thought I'd test it out on a few well known news outlets that were covering the events.
Sadly, the first time I tried this plugin, it just didn't work. So I contacted the developer to see why.
UPDATED: See below 👇
After speaking with the developer, I found out why the technology wasn't working as expected, So what was wrong? I was initially getting messages like this:
It turns out that the plugin works on individual articles, not a home page. This is something the developer will be making a bit more clear in forthcoming versions of the plugin.
Now, with this information I have been able to test out a few sites, and found some interesting results below.
If you're looking for technologies to help identify bias in the news articles you read, you should check out the Meatime.