Media Bias Fact Check

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Show Media Bias / Fact Check ratings for Facebook, Twitter and news websites as you browse

Latest reviews

• (2023-11-13) Richard: It pains me to give the extension a mediocre rating because it provides such a critically important tool, but it's strictly for technical reasons. I love its *purpose* and I fully trust the assessments it displays for news websites, because I've thoroughly vetted the same-named website on which those ratings are based. I find their (openly-published) methodology to be sound, and eventually even became a lifetime subscriber. But the extension failed me too many times, and I finally had to remove it several weeks ago. (I had to reinstall it to post this review.) The problem: I kept noticing that its icon had vanished from the browser. Each time, I went to the area where you manage extensions, and each time saw the message "This extension may have been corrupted," or something very similar. There was always a button to repair the extension, and clicking it always seemed to work.... but then it would happen again days or weeks later, over and over. This all happened on a desktop computer, on the Linux operating system. It happened in the Brave web browser, and I believe also in the Chromium browser. I don't have Chrome, so I can't speak to how well it works on that. I always have a HUGE number of open tabs, so I considered that might be the cause, but I have several other extensions installed which have never needed repairing. I've removed and reinstalled it several times, and have provided feedback about this a few times before posting this rating. I really feel I did my due diligence. Hopefully the problem is fixable, or at least rare. Meanwhile the MediaBiasFactCheck website also recommends a similar, third-party extension which provides the same service. (I won't name it because I don't want it to seem I'm only criticizing this one to promote that one, but you can find it for yourself at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/appsextensions/ and as of November 2023 it's one of the alternatives shown here in the Chrome web store.)
• (2023-07-26) Adolfo Grosso: Doesn't work on facebook anymore, doesn't run on chrome or firefox.
• (2023-03-10) Tangent Man: Media Bias Fact Check is an ESSENTIAL extension/web site to use in a world of misinformation and lies that ruin societies. If only everybody used this. Having used the web for 30 years and being politically aware, I can confirm that the information provided by MBFC is at least 95% correct.
• (2023-03-10) Eric Roth: This is a tried and true sort to discover and understand the media that you are consuming. I believe in reading all sides of story and understanding where the "news" is coming from. I am a child of Brinkley, Cronkite and Rather. I am a consumer of NPR in my adult life. It still means I am going to check everyone's bias to better understand my own. Be curious...not judgemental! This extension is your resource to better information.
• (2023-01-20) Sirnir Víkingur: Works really good, Easy 5 🌟
• (2022-11-06) Kurou Shikai: I generally like this extension but I would rather have the social media bar and the description of why the site earned left-right, and factuality rating it did. Rather than a description of what the left-right-center description means when clicking the icon.
• (2022-11-05) Jay Andrew: This is accurate. It even has Fox News down as FN (Fake News)😁
• (2022-06-25) Athena Gibbons: It's helped me avoid ideology-driven "news" sites on both the left and right.
• (2022-05-21) Jacob Holmes: --UPDATE-- It's working now. It must have been that some server was down or something when I wrote the below. **Disregard** Not working in Chromium 101.0.4951.54. Extension is loaded with no errors, shows the icon, but every website (Cnn, etc.) shows "Not a rated site". **
• (2021-12-09) Andrew Ronding: Very useful and intuitive.
• (2021-03-13) Jim Mutdosch: MUST HAVE!!! If you read news and want to know if your source is at least factual get this! Its ok to have a biases news source but it better be High or Very high in factual reporting! If its not I suggest you tak ewhat they say with a grain of salt. This could have saved so many Americans as its obvious they believed a lot of non factual news and now are pretty messed up :(
• (2021-02-17) Lowell Bander: could be better but it's the best thing out there
• (2021-01-14) steffany brown: I want to love this, but I cannot figure out how to get the collapse to work.
• (2020-12-02) Olly Stedall: Pretty much indispensable - everyone should install this. Sure it's not perfect, as it only rates the website, and not the article itself, but it is still pretty darn useful. It would be good if it could include links to the fact checking sites for specific articles that have been investigated.
• (2020-12-01) Becca Morrow: really helpful when pulling up articles from friends or family members
• (2020-11-16) Amy-Elyse Neer: Very useful, helps me not waste time on articles that are clearly too biased one way or the other to be useful. Also love the "factual" content ratings.
• (2020-11-16) Dave Harris: A reliable tool in my fact checking kit.
• (2020-11-16) BeTa GuRu: I've found it to be correct in almost all cases, the few that aren't are mostly new sites that haven't been evaluated, you also have to keep in mind there are those who will complain no matter what, so give it try and should you happen across something not quite correct inform them of it, instead of just whine and complain lord knows the world had enough whining etc these last 4 years
• (2020-11-16) aemilius: It's useful to have as you can tailor your news intake from the least biased sources. Sometimes however the fact-check status of website seems a bit simplistic. For instance Quilette, is flagged as misinformation based on some articles touting some more than controversial ideas, but they also have good ones. Whilst this website is however definetely right-wing biased.
• (2020-10-07) Angel TV: Very useful as a first step to evaluate news outlets.
• (2020-09-24) Ro: This is probably the extension I rely on most. I wish everyone would use it. I am confident about my facts, so I am confident about my decisions.
• (2020-09-17) Brendan Gotch: This is a high quality and unbiased tool. Hard to come by that these days. Also, if you think it's biased, you might check your own calibration :)
• (2020-04-13) Guy Hunter: Very Helpful for finding facts not feeling in the media.
• (2020-02-26) Dawn Radford: The last one of these I tried dragged FB to a crawl -- this one is FAST. :)
• (2020-01-11) Tracy Drane: Works pretty well but it seems to be a bit too left leaning for me.
• (2020-01-06) Emily Phelps: So easy to use and so valuable! MBFC has a published methodology and makes it so easy to identify if what we're reading is primarily fact-based or if it has strong biases. Everyone should be using this!
• (2019-12-21) Allison Crowe: I won't use Facebook without it.
• (2019-10-28) Ward Williams: Fantastic and easy way to instantly evaluate the quality of the news source you're viewing!
• (2019-08-19) Alan Willmot: Really impressed with its mission statement, its functionality and reliability,
• (2019-07-02) Maya Kilmer: This extension is essential for everyone who wants to find accurate, unbiased information.
• (2018-12-27) Thomas Shea: If you don't want to be duped by fake news, this extension can help you.
• (2018-10-27) steve b: An excellent plug-in for detecting bias and also for tracking the legitimacy of the lesser known news sites.
• (2018-08-26) Naomi Pockell: I hate that you classify anything from the New Yorker as Satire. Just because Andy Borowitz's column is, does NOT mean everthing else from them is satirical. How do I cancel this "service" to my FB posts?
• (2018-07-31) Andrius Survila: It helped a lot initially, although I gradually noticed its "centre point" on the left-right scale to be skewed some degree to the left. But I am very disappointed by the latest evaluations by this tool of "Factuality" of some sources that work arduously on delivering true facts and exposing fake news. I'd like to see any proof for their negative evaluations. Meanwhile, it seems this "bias-checker" is getting biased itself.
• (2018-07-21) Jonathan Clark: It's cool to have, but it's not accurate. You guys need to fix it's accuracy asap. For example, the app thinks that Wikipedia is the World Socialist Website. How and why...
• (2018-04-19) Dana Jenkins: I find the information provided from this extension useful and time saving. After researching and testing the information on MBFC I have found the results are very reliable. The at a glance check of the information I see on Facebook helps me decide if I need to pay attention or disregard. Great for my kids too, who have a tendency to believe anything they see online. Now they know there's a reason to question much of the information they see!
• (2018-04-11) Ben Hemphill: Understand the bias of what you are reading and posting at a glance. Love it.
• (2018-04-01) Jim McGlynn: I love this!
• (2018-02-18) Ayya Sobhana: I have been testing MBFC recently and it's good. I wish it were more convenient to see at a glance the scores for reliable/fact based reporting in addition to left/right bias
• (2018-01-07) Filiz VZ: Awesome!
• (2017-12-02) Terri Kash: Does the job. Very helpful App. Thanks!
• (2017-11-19) Aaron MacLellan: awesome!
• (2017-10-31) Fantastic!
• (2017-09-21) steve rosenberger: Media Bias / Fact Check should be automatically installed in every browser. It is a brilliant solution to the very real problem of evaluating the bias and accuracy of online news sources. Just add the extension to Chrome and add to FB and you'll have critical information at-a-glance. You have to see it to believe it – to see if you can believe it! Go to mediabiasfactcheck.com to see how your least/favorite news sources are rated. *I'd give it six stars if they make the UI a little more intuitive.
• (2017-09-02) Easily solves a very vexing problem. I chose to hide stories that have a left bias or right bias and to view science-based reports. THANKS!
• (2017-08-30) Kimberly Brosan: I love that this extension not only tells me the leanings of the site but also the reliability of the information provided in my Facebook newsfeed. I'm a school librarian and am introducing it to students next week as a tool to prevent them from sharing information that they shouldn't when online.
• (2017-08-08) Phil Wier: Nice addition to my browser.
• (2017-07-18) PhilAndMaude: Very cool, I can't believe the amount of work that went into MB/FC. Works on my Win10 but not on my Wife's; as an ex-programmer, I'd be happy to help debug it.
• (2017-07-16) Angela H.: Is there a way to submit sites that currently do not have a rating? Like PoliticalDig?
• (2017-07-12) RickHayes320 Google: I am so grateful for balanced ratings of web information.

Latest issues

• (2023-07-06, v:4.0.0) Richard: extension no longer appearing
  It might be a good idea to remind users, if you don't already, that the extension evidently needs to be *pinned* to the extension area, otherwise it'll be useless because it won't be visible. At least that's been my experience. I installed it over a year ago on the Brave web browser and a couple months ago its icon stopped appearing. Because of that, and after trying other things, I removed and reinstalled it. For a moment I saw the icon reappear, but then it vanished again. I was in the process of reporting this as a *problem* when it finally hit me to click the "pin" icon in the extension management area of Brave. It's probably the same in Chrome/Chromium.
• (2023-07-06, v:4.0.0) I V: Not a rated site - for all sites
  Recently, the extension started displaying "Not a rated site" for all sites. It did work correctly in the past.
• (2022-12-13, v:3.3.0) Franken Stein: Vivaldi Browser, Windows OS all up to date: Crash Report
  Reproduce: Open Extension from Extension bar to open details about source bias. Error: Browser crashes entirely. Desired Behavior: Browser does not crash, source information is opened on mediabias/factcheck website. Actual Behavior: See Error.
• (2022-09-13, v:3.3.0) Richard Lee: Collapsed news no longer expandable
  I like the 'collapsed news' feature for social media feeds. In the past, it was possible to 'show anyway' to see the story. This no longer works. It remains collapsed.
• (2022-04-06, v:3.3.0) Tom Bernstein: BLank panel in the extension
  The extension used to work fine. A few months ago instead of loading the explanation of a news site when I click the menu button it just loads a blank panel. Any ideas? I have tried completely disabling my adblockers, and it is happening on 2 different computers.
• (2022-03-22, v:3.3.0) Sandra Stoica: Payment
  do we need to pay for this extension?
• (2022-01-17, v:3.2.1) juan alert: desktop;phone device;viber
  my 1juanalert@gmail,com google account sends viber to a lost phone; I want to use my galaxy J5 samsung 09777079014 Philippine mobile number. Thank You and God bless us away from Covid 19.
• (2021-10-12, v:3.2.1) Bryan “Bevans” Evans: Mark publications in news aggregators
  Hi, it's me again. I was just using Google News and thought it'd be great if each article had a little colored fact-check icon next to its publication's name. Maybe someday you could do that for various news aggregators. Anyway, keep up the great work!
• (2021-08-03, v:3.2.1) Firestar 464: Icon displays as "C" despite being LC biased
  When going to the article https://www.africanews.com/2021/08/03/general-assembly-creates-new-permanent-forum-of-people-of-african-descent/, the bias displays as C when it should be LC, as shown here (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/africa-news/).
• (2021-07-03, v:3.2.1) F. P. Gilbert: Flashing icon
  Is there anyway to turn this off. It's distracting. Thanks
• (2021-05-18, v:3.2.1) Andy Dalrymple: Facebook Notifications - icon trigger
  WIN 10 20H2 CHROME 90.0.4430.212 MBFC 3.2.1 When going to - https://www.facebook.com/notifications, I'm getting an LC icon that takes me to - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/msn-com/ Not finding an "MSN" pattern match on search of my notifications within the past three days.
• (2020-12-14, v:3.0.6) Greg Gilliam: Abuse by Media Bias/Fact Check Extension
  Each time I clear my cookies in MS Edge Chromium this extension self-installs. I have never requested and do not want this extension. Please stop this abuse.
• (2020-11-26, v:3.0.5) J M: Collapsing FB posts when opted not to
  Never had collapse selected in options and it's doing it anyways. Had to remove. It only did so for 'right' posts.
• (2020-08-25, v:Release 2.0.7) Dawn Radford: Not working on new facebook design
  Facebook is forcing everyone to go to the new design, and the plugin isn't working.
• (2020-07-24, v:Release 2.0.7) Barbara InCaneyhead: Not seeing an icon.
  I am not seeing an icon on anything. Could my antivirus or my site checker app in google be preventing it?
• (2020-07-21, v:Release 2.0.7) steve b: twitter update broke formatting
  Twitter had an update and now the formatting (on chrome at least) for twitte is odd. It is only twitter that has this problem.
• (2020-06-12, v:Release 2.0.7) Bryan Evans: Please add support for other social media networks
  It would be great if this extension also supported sites like Reddit and Twitter. (I'm sure that's a piece of cake.😁)
• (2019-11-20, v:Release 1.0.15) Daniel Visca: Class Project
  Hello, My name is Daniel, I am a Computer Science Major at the University of Toronto. For a class project I am building a news aggregator that marks the bias of an article from media bias fact checker. I've been using your chrome extension for a while (Thank you for making it) and I noticed that you were scraping media bias fact checker and had built an API for it. I am hoping to avoid building my own API for it as well. Would you be willing to share the API you created or alternatively the data you scraped or the code you used to scrape the site? All the best, Daniel Visca
• (2018-11-18, v:Release 1.0.15) G K: wrong label
  The New Yorker is consistently labelled as satire, apparently being read as The Borowitz Report
• (2018-07-29, v:Release 1.0.15) Please add MRCTV
  Was scrolling through my feed, someone had posted something from MRCTV and the extension did not display anything against this extreme right organization.
• (2018-05-27, v:Release 1.0.15) Jerry Carlson: please make one that overlays on Google News
  MBFC is a fantastic resource and I love the FB extension. Would be really great if you could extend its coverage to the Google News page. Thanks for all your hard work.
• (2018-03-11, v:Release 1.0.15) Peter Wills: This extension
  How is this extension related to the other Media Bias Fact Check extension by a different developer?
• (2017-12-25, v:Release 1.0.14) Extension for others browsers?
  Are you planning on developing this extension for other browsers such as Firefox? Thanks!
• (2017-11-05, v:Release 1.0.14) C Melland: Fox News
  I am a new user and appreciate that the graphic pops up most of the time... but why does it ignore Fox News but rates CBS News? They are both national broadcast news organizations.
• (2017-11-02, v:Release 1.0.14) Kyle Creasey: Wikipedia links misread
  For some reason on Facebook Wikipedia links were showing up as "Left Biased" so I checked and it's being misread as "World Socialist Web Site" Example link that is showing up as such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem
• (2017-07-14, v:Release 1.0.13) Brian Aingworth: Color bar not working.
  After install the color bar is not visible on fb. However, the "collapse" feature does work.
• (2017-03-26, v:1.0.11) Nevia Cashwell: No Longer Working
  No longer working on my MacBook using Google Chrome. Thanks for any help you can provide.