ML-powered newspaper for showing news from many political perspectives

Well done. As others noted, I feared worse based on the headline.

But I think it's really important to replace the "left bias"<>"right bias" slider with a button and text field that simply requests users to report non-neutrality in the write-up, without identifying it as "left" or "right".

Reduction to left/right is rarely helpful and often unhelpful. For most issues complex/significant enough to warrant headline, there isn't -- or shouldn't be -- a monolithic "left" or "right" position one could be biased towards.

Is an authoritarian bias left or right? Is a populist bias left or right? Or is a pro-universal-income bias left or right? Is legislative supremacy as opposed to judicial supremacy a left or right bias?

Better to get the yes/no data about perceived non-neutrality and then analyze the qualitative comment.

One limitation a site like this runs into is the fact that there's no such thing as an "impartial" view on fundamental questions of value. For example, what's the "impartial" view on whether to accept more refugees from war-torn regions? Just because a view is sandwiched between others on whatever particular spectrum chosen, or t uses dispassionate language, doesn't mean it's "impartial". It's still a view argued from values. Stated differently, for many (all?) questions there isn't a view that remains once we've filtered out all of the "biased" views. To further complicate things, one's person's "bias" is another's "commitment".

Perhaps best to refer to the default view here as "composite" rather than "impartial".

The "Give our impartial story your own bias score" slider should be explicit on whether it's just "far left for unbiased, far right for very biased", or if the two ends of the slider represent some implied political positions.

lol “perspective of the ML developer” maybe

Something like this can be great, but feel a hand curation would probably be better served. Here’s a quick one, read Vox and then Breitbart. It’s an intellectual rollercoaster ride.

I'm worried based on some of the comments that people might be reading only the Impartial view and not also the Left-bias and Right-bias versions of the same story. I'd strongly suggest reading all three versions of a story before using the slider to provide feedback on the various versions.

This is great work! I have wanted some version of this news site for years and have been making sketches for how it would work. My working title for the site is "Unspun" and very similar in spirit, except instead of the "Impartial" view, the "center" would just be a list of facts about things that happened that were referenced in both a Left and Right version of an article. And there would be lines connecting the center facts to where they show up (if they do at all) in the Left and Right articles. I'm pretty happy with this format, but I still kind of want to see all 3 versions at the same time so I can cross-reference. But I must like it because I just sent links to a whole bunch of friends and family. :-)

Is bias the right thing to focus on? It's like we're all discovering that journalists are imperfect humans just like the rest of us. Even if an article is a mere list of cited facts there is judgement in which facts to include and in what order to list them.

The better questions about a news source are

1) do they have integrity?

2) are they in touch with reality?

I believe the purpose of newspapers is to give facts which allow me to make up my own mind. Which is certainly harder than just spouting the party line I guess. Take the Swedish Democrats: I agree with their stance on immigration but their economic policy and their social conservative beliefs I do not share.

Interesting idea - though I feel like I’d need to know more about the algorithm, ml inputs, limitations etc, etc before I could trust what I was seeing was well rounded news.

I think the more transparent, even talking about current limitations, will gain you more trust with users

I'm not sure how you can do this without getting sued for copyright infringement.

Try this one! http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed

Partial-impartial is a risky mode of thinking, since it can seduce you into thinking that it's good to be impartial about all things. But there are subjects like climate change and Donald Trump, where it's irresponsible journalism to be "fair to both sides".

The content seems to be far better than what I had feared when reading the headline.

But still: the idea that truth is somehow subject to voting, as expressed in your slider, is far too post-modern for my tastes.

I see you bump levels based on story shares - but if I'm logged in with my email instead of social media, I don't see how that will be tallied to my account.

Cool to see our site on HN on a quiet Sunday! Shoot if you have any questions; I realize the site doesn't go into much technical detail.

I took a look at the current top item in "Politics": https://knowherenews.com/event/2471ce59-379e-40fc-87f7-fee77...

The impartial version "feels" impartial enough in tone, whereas the other two feel more openly partisan, the right one more than the left. But the story becomes more complicated when you look at the actual content.

Impartial version:

- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

- Explains the Swedish political system.

- Explains the alliances.

- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.

- Mentions that immigration is a central issue, but with no explanation.

- Quotes Kakabaveh from the Left party, at length. Mentions that she criticized Sweden's approach to integration, but with no details or explanation. Mentions threats on her by racists and fundamentalists.

- Is described as "impartial" at the bottom.

Left version:

- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

- Explains the Swedish political system.

- Explains the alliances.

- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.

- Only mention of immigration is that SD is anti-immigrant.

- Cites social democratic prime minister Löfven's criticism of SD.

- Is described as "positive" at the bottom.

Right version:

- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.

- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.

- Mentions that immigration and crime are top issues.

- Explains immigration and crime issues.

- Explains that SD "may not" be in the government.

- Cites SD leader Åkesson on broadening that party's appeal.

- Is described as "negative" at the bottom.

The left version goes into some detail on the workings of the Swedish parliamentary system, which are given a mere nod in the right version. On the other hand, the left version does not say anything at all about any issues with immigration in Sweden, while the right version goes into quite a bit of detail, and also discusses a crime issue, which is unmentioned elsewhere.

As for the impartial version, the content turns out to be basically the same as in the left version. Immigration is mentioned, but without any explanation of why it has become a political issue. And the politician cited is actually from the Left party, which sounds farther left than the Social-Democrat PM cited in the left version.

I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. I hope it will deliver its promise, because right now I feel like there is nowhere to go for neutral news. It's either "Omg look at what Trump is doing again! Nazis and racists are everywhere!" leftwing-bs or Breitbart style rightwing garbage.