• US occupying forces in northern Syria are continuing to plunder natural resources and farmland, a practice ongoing since 2011
  • Recently, US troops smuggled dozens of tanker trucks loaded with Syrian crude oil to their bases in Iraq.
  • The fuel and convoys of Syrian wheat were transported through the illegal settlement of Mahmoudia.
  • Witnesses report a caravan of 69 tankers loaded with oil and 45 with wheat stolen from silos in Yarubieh city.
  • Similar acts of looting occurred on the 19th of the month in the city of Hasakeh, where 45 tankers of Syrian oil were taken out by US forces.
  • Prior to the war and US invasion, Syria produced over 380 thousand barrels of crude oil per day, but this has drastically reduced to only 15 thousand barrels per day.
  • The country’s oil production now covers only five percent of its needs, with the remaining 95 percent imported amidst difficulties due to the US blockade.
  • The US and EU blockade prevents the entry of medicines, food, supplies, and impedes technological and industrial development in Syria.
  • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    From mediabiasfactcheck.com

    “Founded in 2005, La Nueva Televisora del Sur (teleSUR, English: The New Television Station of the South) is a multi-state funded, pan–Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia that is headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. TeleSUR has been accused of being a propaganda tool for Hugo Chavez and his successors.”

    It’s not deemed to be a credible source given its direct governmental control and routine lack of transparency in its sources, if it provides any sources whatsoever.

    There is also a long list of provably false reporting from this website.

    I’m not saying that these kinds of actions don’t take place, just that this source is not reliable and I would guess that systemic theft from an incredibly scrutinized entity in a hostile country would be subject to a little bit more widespread reporting and corroborating evidence.

          • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Like a tool in a media literacy toolbox?

            You’re showing your own bias. It’s not the resource. It’s one that does an awful lot of legwork in checking bad sources of news, very often accurately.

            So. Don’t call me a “lib,” pal.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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              7 months ago

              If you ever bother looking who funds the tool it will become clear to you whose biases it promotes. It’s incredible that there are people so gullible as to genuinely believe that this is some sort of an altruistic project.

              • Sightline@lemmy.ml
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                I’ve been watching you for years dude, you don’t have room to talk about biases.

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  I’m pretty open about my biases dude, and never pretended otherwise. The point here, is that western mainstream constitutes a bias just like anything else. All you’re complaining about here is that my biases are different from yours. There’s no such thing as unbiased content. Deal with it.

                  • Sightline@lemmy.ml
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                    6 months ago

                    All you’re complaining about here is that my biases are different from yours.

                    I’m not complaining about anything, I’m calling out your hypocrisy.

                    I’m pretty open about my biases dude,

                    You sure weren’t open about it in that comment I responded to.

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                7 months ago

                You are making the claim about its funding. Please provide your argument, rather than making oblique references to things.

                I haven’t had time to watch and contextualize the long video you sent me to respond to it.

                But if you have concerns about the bias of a well known and widely respected source of fact checking (not even first hand news), then please expound and cite it.

                Otherwise, I have to assume you are making a bad faith argument, and cannot source your assertions, so I don’t have any need to engage with you.

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                  I mean it’s right on their site, the fact that you can’t figure out how to find basic information on the internet says a lot about you. It’s funded in large part by ads. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/funding/

                  There are also plenty of criticisms of the site and the methodology that are well known. For example, The Columbia Journalism Review has described MBFC reviews as subjective assessments that “leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in”

                  https://www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php

                  There is an obvious inherent bias given that what’s considered centre is liberal mainstream centre in the west. That’s what’s known as anchoring bias, being to the left of what’s the current mainstream in the west doesn’t make something extreme in objective sense.

                  MBFC has also rated US propaganda outlets such as VoA and RFE as being “least biased”. Even wikipedia considers these sources unreliable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Potentially_unreliable_sources

                  Just a few examples for you there. Hopefully that’s enough expounding and citing for you to get a picture.

                  • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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                    7 months ago

                    Your condescending tone certainly makes you an unattractive conversation partner.

                    They are funded by advertising. Do you prefer your media to be opaquely funded, or you just prefer media that comes directly from certain states?

                    Who cares if it’s funded by advertisements? Why is that relevant? I would rather open funding by sponsors I can see than dark money or anonymous donors.

                    I’ve acknowledged the criticisms for the site, and have only made the argument that it’s a useful tool to use for media literacy. It’s based on US media, and approaches things based on the political circumstances of (primarily) the US and the anglosphere.

                    I’ve also acknowledged that human bias and inconsistencies exist, and again encouraged its use -alongside critical thinking and media literacy to help with evaluating sources. I. This particular case it simply helped to illustrate that this “news” is just Syrian propaganda that’s being repeated by other governments that have good cause to criticize the United States.

                    Yes, MBFC it has a bias towards western political bias, because those are the circumstances within which the room was created. That’s a drawback, and, again, something that needs to be accounted for when using the tool.

                    You have done a fine job at reiterating your points. But none of it is a damning assessment of MBFC. You’ve just proven that it’s not perfect. Something I agree with.

                    These are flaws that need to be taken into account when using it, but it doesn’t make to tool useless.

                    But the fact remains that it is considered a reliable enough source to have qualified support for it on various university resource lists.

        • davel@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          If you’re not a liberal then what are you? A socialist? A monarchist? The Republican and Democratic parties are both liberal ones, as were the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, and Whig parties before them.

          • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            I’m a critical thinker and student of public policy and global society and political discourse?

            I have a deep and lasting dislike of authoritarianism, no matter the political orientation?

            I value media literacy and critical thought?

            I dislike the exploitative trend of capitalism, it believe that ny ultimate purpose is to use my own privilege to try and soften the blow for humanity in whatever small way I can, thinking globally in scope while emphasizing engagement with my own immediate community?

            But really, I’m just weirded out by the attack on critical thought around here, when all I did was question a questionable source. I’m also wondering why the fuck my political orientation is relevant here, and why you think you’re able to condescend to me in such a childish way.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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              7 months ago

              I have a deep and lasting dislike of authoritarianism, no matter the political orientation?

              You’re literally the one appealing to the authority of MBFC here, irony is truly dead.

            • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 months ago

              This conversation is entirely being driven by you saying irrelevant things and using garbage sources like mediabiasfactcheck.com

              Nobody is stopping you from finding sources that contradict the original posted story. Nobody is stopping you from explaining why the original posted story is wrong.

              Dying on a hill about the usefulness of a glorified amazon review ass source isn’t critical thinking.

              • Sightline@lemmy.ml
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                6 months ago

                “Nobody is stopping you from explaining why the original posted story is wrong.”

                Breaking news: There is a teapot orbiting Mercury.

                Use your sources to prove it wrong.

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                  6 months ago

                  I don’t need sources to “debunk” a statement used for demonstrations. But you do need some argumentation to combat claims made by the original story. US troops have been known to engage in questionable behaviour in the past (vast understatement) and in terms of stealing oil, the US government has openly seized oil tankers from other states as well

                  The Suez Rajan was carrying more than 980,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil last year when it was seized and the oil confiscated in the U.S. sanctions enforcement operation.

                  We also know that various parts of the US security aparatus have peddled drugs and weapons around the world, both to raise money that can be used without congressional approval and to sow instability. For this point, you can find the stories yourself, it is an extensively covered topic.

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                    Your distractions will not work against me. Prove there isn’t a teapot orbiting Mercury. I want you to demonstrate for everyone here why that doesn’t make sense.

    • NeatPinecone@lemm.eeOP
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      7 months ago

      Yeah, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for BBC to cover Western atrocities in the developing world, let alone any US outlet (or rather frame it as justified in response to retaliatory attacks to violence initiated by US intervention in the first place). The issue with over relying on sites like MBFC is that they inherently have a western bias. The US exploiting Syria for its oil isn’t even news at this point, this has been ongoing since 2011.

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I’ve been on quite a few military installations, lived on one, worked at two, and even those permanent bases didn’t have a refinery on-site. I supremely doubt that there’s equipment on a foreign base or forward operating base.

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        7 months ago

        I’m former military, I’ve deployed twice, but none of that qualifies any statement towards the US routinely exploiting countries like Syria for their natural resources.

        • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          The other poster is making the point that they did not observe any ability, at large military installations or small, to refine or store oil or unprocessed wheat.

          Did you during your service?

          Edit: changed “he” to “they”

      • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        That’s the same argument that the (presumably) other poster is making.

        The founder is relatively anonymous. Why does that impact the demonstrable work his creation does?

        • Highalectical@lemmygrad.ml
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          7 months ago

          So multiple posters are giving you logical fact based arguments and that’s somehow supposed to make your point more credible? You are a deeply unserious person.

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            7 months ago

            If I’m being honest, I don’t have time to read through all of you other, linked comment, that doesn’t at all contextualize it into this current conversation.

            I will try to do that, though, and appreciate the seemingly good faith post that I didn’t see in your other comments.

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                7 months ago

                I said I didn’t have time to give this persons argument with the time it required to engage with it in good faith.

                It’s weird that you’re so opposed to open and honest communication in the context of an argument. Doesn’t speak very well about you.

                • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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                  7 months ago

                  Hideous motives favouring NATO are in itself bad faith character traits, and are not caring of morality or transparent discussion. The agenda is already set and the debate is backtracked from that agenda goal favouring western devil hegemon.

    • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      MBFC shills need to be reeducated. There is an incredible overlap in Anglo nationalists and MBFC shills, considering these self appointed immoral police fact check western propaganda sources as legit.

      • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        They often state that western sources use less biased language and more often provide evidence, but always acknowledge when they are a part of a government.

        Which, by the way, was the gist of my critique of the source that I highlighted in my OP. This news agency is literally funded by governments that are opposed to the US in Syria, and are quoting another Syrian government owned source.

        I don’t know what an “Anglo nationalist” even is.

        • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Anglo nationalist is a NATO supporter who treats the West as one unit and talks nonsense in favour of maintaining its unipolar global hegemon status.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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      7 months ago

      Please avoid citing MBFC as a valid source.

      Dave Van Zandt is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence-based reporting. Since High School (a long time ago), Dave has been interested in politics and noticed as a kid the same newspaper report in two different papers was very different in their tone. This curiosity led him to pursue a Communications Degree in college; however, like most 20-year olds he didn’t know what he wanted and changed to a Physiology major midstream. Dave has worked in the healthcare industry (Occupational Rehabilitation) since graduating from college but never lost the desire to learn more about bias and its impacts.

      The combination of being fascinated by politics, a keen eye to spot bias before he even knew what it was called, and an education/career in science gave Dave the tools required for understanding Media Bias and its implications. This led to a 20-year journey where Dave would read anything and everything he could find on media bias and linguistics. He also employed the scientific method to develop a methodology to support his assessments.

      If you’re going to discredit a source, please try to do the legwork of actually discrediting it. A guy with a Bachelors in Physiology and being “fascinated with politics since high school (a long time ago)” cannot be considered a reliable source, nevermind one who claims to follow the “scientific method” which he, presumably, learned while studying to become an occupational therapist or through his 20-year journey of reading political news.

      If you have photos of this man, any record of interviews with him, records that support his credibility/the incorporation of his company, records of his job in occupational rehabilitation, details about his team, or anything else, please feel free to share them. Please do not confuse him with Dave E. Van Zandt (Princeton BA Sociology, Yale JD, London School of Economics PhD, ex-managing editor of the Yale Law Journal, ex-Dean of Northeastern’s School of Law, ex-President of The New School).

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        I don’t understand. Unless you have a degree in journalism or something similar you’re not allowed to be an expert on media outlets? How many professors of practice at universities don’t have a degree related to what they’re teaching?

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m super put off by this notion that he had a “super keen eye“ and natural aptitude for spotting “bias.” I also object to the way that people talk about bias, but that’s another discussion. The point is yeah there’s a little bit of bullshit in there, but his background does not discredit the endeavor.

        • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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          7 months ago

          Professors of Practice tend to have experience in the industry they are professors in. Their reputation is hinged on their achievements, and they don’t cite their degree as being instrumental to their credibility.

          Edit: professors are also, y’know, subject to scrutiny and can’t hide behind anonymity when they get things wrong.

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            7 months ago

            The site’s history speaks for itself. Because or in spite of him, it’s a solid way to at-a-glance assess an outlet. It is not the whole story, it’s not even a great story, but it’s a start that’s pretty solid.

            • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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              7 months ago

              How would you support this claim? It’s solid because it exists and people read it?

                • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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                  7 months ago

                  It’s credibility and reliability, which I’ve already done and which you’ve acknowledged.

                  Just do the legwork to critique the source, it’s not that hard. There’s no need to cite bad sources just because they exist.

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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        7 months ago

        If you’re going to discredit a source, please try to do the legwork of actually discrediting it.

        You have not done any “legwork” to discredit MBFC. Your personal opinion is that the owner/author doesn’t have appropriate credentials/experience, but you haven’t actually demonstrated that he is not credible.

        • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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          7 months ago

          A person without credentials, without experience, and without any evidence to prove that their claimed credentials or experience are legitimate… Is a credible source?

          Can you find any evidence, any at all that the person actually has the credentials that they themselves claim? This is trivial to do for pretty much any modern journalist, but I’ve been able to find zero information on him.

          • CMD@bae.st
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            7 months ago

            @zephyreks @NaibofTabr “In order to make a claim about media events you need journalistic credentials.”

            Holy shit get the fucking boot out of your mouth you’re making feet fetishists look like upstanding members of society

          • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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            7 months ago

            Nope, you are making the claim that the information presented on MBFC is not credible, it is up to you to substantiate that claim. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

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              7 months ago

              Your claim is that… Credibility exists unless disproven? Consider that for a minute.

              • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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                7 months ago

                Nope, my claim is that you haven’t substantiated your claim with anything more than your own personal opinion. And look at that, my claim is supported by all of your comments continuously failing to present anything more than your personal opinion. QED.

                Get some sources. Or get quiet.

                • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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                  7 months ago

                  “[MBFC’s] subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production.” - Columbia Journalism Review

                  “Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific.” - PolitiFact journalists

                  Journalists seem to agree with me, which you’d know if you actually read “all of my comments.” This isn’t the first time I’ve posted these quotes in this thread.

      • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        MBFC is a good enough source for routine information, and its system is accurate enough to give a general idea of who finances, who writes, and whether the articles are sourced according to journalistic standards. It’s a good tool to help with critical evaluation of media sources. But you’re right: it’s not flawless.

        Your attack on the founder is an ad hominem attack, and I don’t think it’s relevant. Are you suggesting that people can only learn things through a university education?

        Besides, it’s often cited by university sources and experts as being a decent enough indicator of reliability and bias, if not necessarily held up to standards of something like a peer review.

        It’s a tool to be used in conjunction with critical thought and evaluation of the source itself, and for that I think it’s rather accurate and useful.

        • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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          7 months ago

          Thing is, even if he is good at media criticism, there’s no stakes for him. Nobody knows who he is, what he looks like, he has nothing on the line, and his credibility in his primary occupation cannot be harmed if he is wrong.

          Nevermind that he lacks the credentials nor any legitimate scientific expertise, and yet claims that his Bachelor’s in Physiology was sufficiently advanced to teach him everything he needs to know about the scientific process.

          The dataset is seen in academia as being accurate enough to train machine learning models for or to make aggregate claims on. Machine learning models are not the bastions of truth, nor are their datasets.

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            Thing is, even if he is good at media criticism, there’s no stakes for him. Nobody knows who he is, what he looks like, he has nothing on the line, and his credibility in his primary occupation cannot be harmed if he is wrong.

            This reads like an argument against open source projects in general lol

            • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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              You can trivially verify that an open-source project works. Good luck verifying a subjective rating.

          • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Machine learning has nothing to do with this. I am referring to academics who study journalism, communication, political science, or sociology.

            And it’s doesn’t really matter who he is at this point, the product he created works well and continues to be a reliable source to interrogate media sources.

            I am happy that a person is able to create such a useful product, maintain it and continue to prove reliability in the product, and maintain anonymity. I certainly would want to remain anonymous if I was creating something that actively worked to check people’s information bias.

            But it’s an irrelevant discussion: who he is doesn’t really matter when evaluating the work of the site itself.

            • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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              7 months ago

              “[MBFC’s] subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production.” - Columbia Journalism Review

              “Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific.” - PolitiFact journalists

              MBFC is used when analyzing a large swathe of data because they have ratings for basically every news outlet. There, if a quarter or a third of the data is wrong, you can still generate enough signal to separate from noise.

              It absolutely matters who is running a site because there’s an inherent accountability for journalism. There’s a reason you don’t see NYT articles from “Anonymous Ostrich.”

              • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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                7 months ago

                I accept your point about why it matters who runs the site. I would just argue that in this case, it’s not as relevant because the goal seems to legitimately be information transparency, which is consistently delivered across its work. Its findings are at least generally reproducible. But no it’s not scientific. I believe I’ve stated that already, however it’s a good indication of reliability of a source.

                Yes, human bias creeps in, hence my point of using it alongside general media literacy and critical thinking when evaluating media.

                It aggregates and analyzes a ton of sources, and gives generally accurate information about how they are funded, where they are based, and how well the cite original sources. These are all things that can be corroborated by a somewhat systematic reading of the sources themselves.

                • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
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                  7 months ago

                  An LLM also “aggregates and analyzes a ton of sources, and gives generally accurate information about how they are funded, where they are based, and how well the cite original sources.”

                  That doesn’t make an LLM a useful source.

                  • nahuse@sh.itjust.works
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                    7 months ago

                    YEAH IT DOES.

                    Jesus Christ; it’s literally one of the foremost things you have to consider when using an LLM as a tool.

                    IT IS NOT GOSPEL. IT IS A TOOL THAT YOU CAN USE TO HELP YOU CREATE AN INFORMED OPINION, BUT IT IS NOT INFALLIBLE.

                    IT IS USEFUL, NOT PERFECT.