<p>The looted fuel was sent to their bases in Iraq, through the illegal settlement of Mahmoudia.</p>
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.
“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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
i went to the media bias fact check page for radio free asia, pushed control-f and typed "cia". there were three hits, as part of the words "politicians", "appreciate" and "social".
radio free asia was literally founded by the cia as an anticommunist us propaganda mouthpiece.
well, maybe they don't exactly use those words but they might basically say the same thing... what does mbfc's rfa history section look like?
Founded in 1951, Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit international broadcasting agency of the United States government that broadcasts and publishes online news, information, and commentary to listeners in East Asia while “advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy.” RFA distributes content in nine Asian languages for audiences in six countries. In the past, RFA served as an anti-communist propaganda operation. Today they continue to promote USA interests with a less direct propaganda approach.
well, that's glossing over and avoiding some important points, but at least they're admitting it's promoting "USA interests with a less direct propaganda approach". lets see how they score a source they described as literal government propaganda mouthpiece:
Overall, we rate Radio Free Asia as Left-Center Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that slightly favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record. (11/28/2016) (Updated D. Van Zandt 09/03/2023)
oh, the US government propaganda outfit serving "content in nine Asian languages for audiences in six countries" is left-center and highly factual! Who would have known!
the thing that makes media bias fact check a bad source is that it relies on a one dimensional left-right bias continuum and another one dimensional veracity continuum.
anyone with their head screwed on straight, no matter their personal politics or country of origin can tell without a shadow of a doubt that rfa isn't a good source because it's a propaganda arm of the us government. when evaluated on the metrics of leftness or rightness under the rubric of mbfc though, it shows up as "left-center" and when put to the test of authenticity by mbfc it is determined to be highly factual.
media bias fact check is a bad source. it cannot, by design, communicate the reality of a source's bias because the way it evaluates bias is constrained by and i'd say warped into only what fits it's highschool-in-1999-ass rubric of bias and accuracy!
The OP is using this "source" to discredit other sources. If you're going to disprove another source, prove that your own source is legitimate in spite of the questions regarding its credibility.
yeah, pretty much. They need to show us an example of why it’s not effective at its mission. Preferably not just pointing to the founder and saying “he doesn’t have the proper degree.“
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.
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.
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.
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.
"[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.
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.
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.
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
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.
"[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."
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.
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."
We don't allow LLM-generated summaries as news stories. Do the legwork, use these tools to start if you want to, but don't cite them as though they are gospel.
What are you talking about? LLMs have no bearing in this conversation, you brought them up.
Are you saying that you don’t allow people to use tools to evaluate media; and share their reasons for scepticism?
The bit that I quoted from MBFC is factual information (the story’s sponsors and an assessment of reliability), which I used to begin a conversation about the source.
Which upon further discussion was, indeed, ultimately sourced to a Syrian governmental agency, which is then been repeated by various governmental sources. There has not yet been any evidence to support the allegations made by the original source, which supports MBFC assertion that the original news agency does not often provide reliable (by journalistic standards) justification for its news stories. It seems like a really weird idea for you to so vehemently oppose a resource that enables critical thinking.
The news article is an extension of at least one state agency, and there are critiques of its truthfulness. That’s the takeaway from my original comment.
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but I literally cannot fathom a good faith justification for not allowing a widely accepted tool for media literacy to be allowed here. (For clarity, I’m talking about MBFC, not any LLM stuff, which only serves to obfuscates things.)
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.
Edit: you have ranted and offered links to Wikipedia. It’s clear that you don’t know how to use this particular tool, as it’s designed primarily for US media, and adheres to North American and European journalistic standards, with an inherent and sizable bias towards the United States political and media climate.
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.
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.
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.
Can you provide any somewhat reliable evidence to support your claims about the USA stealing oil?
I’m just trying to understand the mechanics and the utility of it. The US military has exceptional logistics, a vast oil reserve, and extraordinary oil production and refining industries. This doesn’t even mention any of its allies in the region where it can base logistical support.
Not to mention what others have pointed out: that there likely aren’t very many, if any, US military installations in the world capably of refining crude oil or turning wheat into flour.
Again, the US exploiting Syria for oil has been occurring since 2011. BBC has a decent article on Syrians oil production post-US intervention. but have your pick.
Those are all news sources that say Syria has accused the USA of stealing oil, or Trump saying it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I could not find any sources (aside from the last two, of which I similarly question the validity and reliability) that corroborate the US military stealing oil directly from any Syrian entity, as the original source asserts.
So, no, it’s not “common knowledge” that this happens. It’s an assertion made by a geopolitical rival in the context of a very messy and complex conflict, and I dispute it. You have yet to provide any actual information supporting the claim, as does the Syrian government.
Saying things over and over again does not eventually make them true.
No, your right. Syrian oil production plummeting after US occupation is actually just a coincidence. We also 100 percent invaded Iraq for WMDs. You're not going to find BBC, Reuters, or the Washington Post outright stating the disposition of US interventionism.
There’s an entire fucking civil war going on in Syria. Of course oil production is going to fall.
The invasion of Iraq is not a good comparison for the conflict in Syria. The geopolitical situation is different between 2003 and now. The USA exports significant amount of oil now. It imported it then.
Listen, the United States military has done plenty of terrible shit. It’s still happening, and it’s going to happen. But this suggestion that it’s just going out and hijacking tankers of crude oil and driving them to some random forward operating post and then refining it there or sending it to the black market somehow is just… rather far fetched.
I don’t have time to watch an hour and a half video right now.
Will you please quote the words of the source that you are offering, in addition to the context of their words?
This is such a weird assertion to make, I just don’t understand the mission of the people who are arguing with me about media literacy and downvoting my calls for critical thinking about the media they consume.
Which I have to contextualize into our argument here, and research who this speaker is, and what the actual context of her comment is.
Which is a lot of work for somebody trying to engage in a good faith, honestly. You’re making assertions, do the work to prove them and it makes your argument more convincing and effective.
If you have the proof of your claims about this media literacy tool, then make and support your arguments clearly. You’re being lazy and it makes me not want to believe you, even though I honestly have a lot of interest in consuming media ethically and critically.
Plus the actual cost of transport and guarding that transport doesn't seem like the profit would actually be worth the risk. It mostly seems like why would we bother, not enough reward for the risk.
Edit: OK, some back of the napkin math, if a tanker holds 11,600 gallons and a barrel of crude oil (42 gallons to a barrel) costs around $85 (current prices), then the revenue of the 69 oil transports would be around 1.6 Million dollars. This is assuming they got current prices, the army basically sent enough soldiers to protect a full convoy, and they didn't have to drive too much of a distance to an oil refinery. After taking into account expenses, that really is a stupid low profit for such high risk (if a soldier was shot for instance it would definitely be in the news). I do not buy the story, way too much doesn't add up from a financial perspective.
Plus the actual cost of transport and guarding that transport doesn't seem like the profit would actually be worth the risk. It mostly seems like why would we bother, not enough reward for the risk.
Edit: OK, some back of the napkin math, if a tanker holds 11,600 gallons and a barrel of crude oil (42 gallons to a barrel) costs around $85 (current prices), then the revenue of the 69 oil transports would be around 1.6 Million dollars. This is assuming they got current prices, the army basically sent enough soldiers to protect a full convoy, and they didn't have to drive too much of a distance to an oil refinery. After taking into account expenses, that really is a stupid low profit for such high risk (if a soldier was shot for instance it would definitely be in the news). I don't buy the story, way too many things that don't add up financially.
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.
Ok?, they weren't and you know that, which means your response was meant to detract from the original argument and to prevent any further constructive communication.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lmao. Liberals are hilarious. I provide you with arguments and sources that restore the discussion to the topic of the post, and instead of critiquing that, you get stuck on martian orbital teapots. This is exactly what I was talking about in my original comment. Bad faith arguers never advance the discussion in a substantial way, they only derail it with nonsense.
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.
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.
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.
If I claimed to not have biases while calling out other biases, that would certainly be hypocrisy. Pointing out that MFBC is biased while acknowledging my own biases is not hypocrisy. Hope that helps you.
You sure weren’t open about it in that comment I responded to.
Oh, how was I not open about it? Please cite where I try to pretend to be unbiased or mislead people regarding my position. Would love to hear about it champ.
This welterweight debate bro is still waiting for his orbital teapot as well. What a bunch of silly feints. I would stop wasting my time. The post is two days old anyway.
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.
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"
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.
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.
Your condescending tone certainly makes you an unattractive conversation partner.
Then don't converse with me. Simple solutions are available given that this is an entirely you problem.
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.
Entire books have been written on how advertisement models create biases in favor of the advertisers. If you don't understand why that's relevant what else can I say. Also, nobody is arguing for any dark money here. That's just a straw man you made. The argument is that the whole premise is flawed.
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.
It's a useful tool for reinforcing mainstream western views and promoting these biases. People use it to shut down discussion and to smear sources outside western mainstream. This is problematic in the extreme.
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.
And that's why it's highly problematic in a context of the media published by US adversaries. It should not be difficult to understand why, but here we are.
These are flaws that need to be taken into account when using it, but it doesn’t make to tool useless.
Given that people keep trotting it out to promote their political biases, seems that the tool is outright harmful.
But the fact remains that it is considered a reliable enough source to have qualified support for it on various university resource lists.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.