Five

Oh, so if he sincerely believes in genocide, it’s fine.

Regardless of our conflict, we can agree that Pepe Escobar is a shithead.

There's an old joke that goes:

Two people, a Hexbear and a Solarpunk were arguing. One said,

“On my server I can reply to an admin and say "I don't like how you're running things on this instance!"

"I can do that too!"

"Really?"

"Yes! I can reply to an admin and say, "I don't like how the SLRPNK admins are running things on their instance!"

My concern is that the criteria you are using to justify banning The Cradle would also ban most United States media as well. I value the principle of a free press, and what you're proposing is inconsistent with those values. It's easy to call for the ban of information that disagrees with us, but unless we develop a more nuanced approach to combating propaganda, we risk replicating the values of the authoritarian systems we oppose.

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.

I'm sharing the screenshot posted to Reddit, I haven't seen the article. You can follow the link to the Reddit thread.

Via Reddit

Nouvelle Algérie?

You can see beehaw has a lot less activity now then it had last year.

Fediverse Observer and FediDB show a drop in active users, but the pattern of peak in July 2023 and then a slow regression isn't unique to Beehaw, and is a pattern seen across the Threadiverse.

You left, but Beehaw being willing to give teeth to the concept of defederation is the reason I joined. I don't think the decision hurt their user-count. It definitely helped distinguish their culture from the rest of the Fediverse.