Article Bias Rating Badge

WHAT IT DOES

Article Bias Rating Badge displays a color-coded badge on any news or media website showing the perceived political bias rating of the source. The badge appears as a small pill-shaped indicator with a dot and label (Left, Center, Right, or Mixed) based on a built-in database of over 80 news and media outlets. When you hover over the badge, a detailed tooltip appears showing the source's reliability score, factual reporting rating, and ownership information. You can click the badge to copy all this information to your clipboard. The extension also supports manual override, allowing you to set or change the rating for any domain. This is a valuable tool for media literacy, helping readers understand the perspective of the news they consume.

WHERE IT RUNS

The extension works on every website with news or media content, including major news sites, blogs, opinion platforms, and any page where you want to check the source's bias. It runs locally in your browser, using a built-in database of media ratings compiled from reputable media watchdogs. No data is sent to external servers. The extension supports all major browsers and adapts to both desktop and mobile viewports seamlessly.

HOW TO USE

After installation, a small badge appears in the corner of the page (top-right by default) showing the bias rating of the current domain. Hover over the badge to see a detailed tooltip with reliability, factual reporting, and ownership information. Click the badge to copy all information to your clipboard. To customize the experience, open the extension panel and choose the badge position (Top-left, Top-right, Bottom-left, or Bottom-right). Select the badge size (Small, Medium, or Large). Toggle "Show detailed tooltip on hover" to enable or disable the tooltip. If you disagree with a rating, use the manual override feature to set the bias rating for the current domain. For per-site customization, enable or disable the extension on specific websites using the per-site controls.

THE ACTUAL MECHANISM — DOMAIN-BASED RATING LOOKUP WITH MANUAL OVERRIDE SUPPORT

The extension uses a comprehensive JavaScript object containing bias ratings for over 80 news and media sources. The database includes fields for bias (Left, Center, Right, Mixed), reliability (High, Mixed, Low, Very Low), factual reporting (High, Mixed, Low, Very Low), and ownership. When a page loads, the extension extracts the domain from the URL (e.g., "cnn.com" from "https://www.cnn.com"), normalizes it by removing the "www." prefix, and looks it up in the database. If a match is found, the badge is displayed with the appropriate color (blue for Left, purple for Center, red for Right, orange for Mixed). If no match is found, the badge is hidden. The extension checks for manual overrides stored per domain using GM_setValue before looking up the default rating. The badge is positioned using fixed positioning with z-index 2147482000 to appear above page content. The tooltip is positioned relative to the badge and adjusted to stay within the viewport. All ratings are stored locally and updated via the extension panel.

THE PANEL

The settings panel is a lightweight, draggable overlay that appears in the center of your screen. You can reposition it by clicking and dragging the title bar; release it near the screen edge and it will snap into place automatically. To collapse the panel into a compact title bar, click the minimize button, expanding it again with the same control. The panel is fully responsive, adapting to different screen resolutions with a minimum width of 300px and a maximum of 480px. Press the Escape key at any time to dismiss the panel without applying changes. All controls—the enable/disable toggle, refresh badge button, position selector, size selector, tooltip toggle, manual override selector, and per-site controls—are accessible within a clean, high-contrast interface that respects your system's color scheme.

PLEASE NOTE

This extension requires the free BotGentz companion extension to be installed and active, which provides the underlying DOM access, clipboard, and storage engine. The bias ratings are based on publicly available media watchdog assessments and are intended for informational purposes only. Ratings may not reflect the views of all users and should be considered as one of many tools for media literacy. The database is static and may not include all news sources—users can manually override ratings for domains not in the database. No personal data, browsing history, or page content is ever collected, stored, or transmitted. All settings are saved using the browser's storage API and remain solely on your device. The extension does not inject ads, trackers, or analytics of any kind.