Look, honestly I don’t really know who Ryan Grim is, but I googled “Ryan Grim” and “The Gray Zone” and apparently “the grayzone crowd comes after [him] all the time”.
https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1696331666980053126
I also don’t know enough to really get into a discussion about Israel / Palestine, and I don’t know anything about the drama with WaPo in the article you linked so I can’t say whether or not it’s 100% factual as you say.
Maybe in this specific instance, The Gray Zone is correct, and in agreement with Ryan Grim. I don’t know. But the thing is, you are I are in a discussion about bias and source quality. And I’m saying to you that, in my view, The Gray Zone doesn’t pass the smell test.
That’s the whole point of MBFC: to get a smell test of whether a source is worth considering or not.
What I am saying is, I’m not going to spend hours of my life going through your source to check it out, and possibly verify it, or refute it point by point. Especially when the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on it is:
Coverage of The Grayzone has focused on its misleading[25][26] and false reporting,[27] its criticism of American foreign policy,[1][4] and its sympathetic coverage of the Russian, Chinese and Syrian governments.[4][21][28][29] The Grayzone has downplayed or denied the persecution of Uyghurs in China,[33] and been accused of publishing conspiracy theories about Xinjiang, Syria and other regions,[34][35][36] and publishing disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda.[32][36]
The article about Xinjiang that I linked to you was just from a random source I clicked from Wikipedia.
I realize that I am probably coming across in a rather dismissive way, but honestly I think that’s the point – if I can convince myself this quickly that a source looks suspicious, it’s in my interest to dismiss it just as quickly. In the past I’ve spent dozens of hours doing deep dives on random sources that friends have sent me, and in every case it’s been a waste of time because I ended up coming to the same conclusion that I did in 5 seconds of reading Wikipedia.
I know some people love doing these deep dives, but I’ve realized for myself – like back in 2010 when one particular person was sending me crap from Natural News – that unless I truly get “this needs the benefit of the doubt” vibes, all that time I spend just makes me feel bitter and angry at the world, and I end up having gained nothing and learned nothing from the experience.
So again, I’m sorry. Your source may be correct. But it looks seriously suspicious. Personally, I’m not willing to look any deeper than that.
I mean look at this dumpster fire of a comment section… I don’t think we as a community are really making a good case.
Personally I think the bot is a bad idea because I always hated that kind of shit on Reddit. I’d rather have discussion with real people than just have a bot that always comments.
But the people attacking MBFC are really coming out of left field in my view. If I was a mod, I don’t know if I’d want to listen to feedback either.