Question 1

What is Signal / noise?

Accepted Answer

Signal/noise aggregates news from 135+ institutional sources and 40+ independent voices across the political spectrum — from MSNBC and Vox on the left to Fox News and Daily Wire on the right, plus wire services like AP and Reuters in the center. We use AI to cluster headlines about the same story and show you how different outlets frame the same events, so you can cut through bias and form your own view.

Question 2

Where do the stories come from?

Accepted Answer

We pull headlines directly from RSS feeds in real time. Institutional sources include major outlets like NYT, CNN, WSJ, BBC, NPR, The Hill, The Intercept, Mother Jones, The Federalist, Washington Examiner, The Dispatch, and many more — 135+ sources total. Independent voices include 40+ curated writers and publications like Stratechery, Seymour Hersh, Matt Taibbi, Doomberg, War on the Rocks, and Lawfare. Each source is assigned a bias rating on a left-to-right scale based on established media bias research.

Question 3

How does the bias analysis work?

Accepted Answer

Each source has a pre-assigned bias score on a scale from -3 (far left) to +3 (far right). When we cluster headlines into stories, the AI identifies which outlets are covering the story and maps them to five buckets: Left, Center Left, Center, Center Right, and Right. It also detects "blindspots" — stories that one side of the spectrum is ignoring.

Question 4

What does the summary include?

Accepted Answer

Each story summary covers: the core facts, how left-leaning outlets frame the story, how right-leaning outlets frame it, what centrist sources emphasize, and what context or angles might be missing from the overall coverage. The goal is to give you a complete picture in a few paragraphs.

Question 5

What do the colored source pills mean?

Accepted Answer

Source pills are color-coded by political leaning. Blue-toned pills are left/center-left sources, gray is center, and warm-toned pills are center-right/right. A lock icon indicates paywalled sources. Clicking a pill opens the original article — for paywalled articles, we link through archive.ph, which captures article content before paywall scripts load. If archive.ph doesn't have a snapshot, try archive.today or web.archive.org as alternatives.

Question 6

How often are stories updated?

Accepted Answer

Stories are refreshed automatically twice a day via a background job — you'll always see fresh analysis when you visit. Admins can also manually refresh on demand using the Refresh button in the header.

Question 7

What does it cost?

Accepted Answer

New users get $10 of free AI analysis on our platform key (roughly 5-10 refreshes). After that, add your own Anthropic API key in Settings — you pay Anthropic directly, around $1-2 per refresh. Get a key at console.anthropic.com.

Question 8

What is BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)?

Accepted Answer

BYOK lets you use your own Anthropic API key for the AI analysis. This means you pay Anthropic directly for usage instead of using our platform credits. Your key is encrypted with AES-256-GCM and stored securely. Get a key at console.anthropic.com.

Question 9

How is my data protected?

Accepted Answer

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt (12 rounds). Two-factor authentication uses TOTP with encrypted secrets. Session tokens use 256-bit random values. API keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. We don't track your reading habits or sell any data.

Question 10

What is the Daily Email Digest?

Accepted Answer

Enable the daily digest in Settings to receive an intelligence-style briefing at 7:15 AM CST every morning. It includes the top story with detailed framing analysis, 3-4 secondary stories, and the day's biggest blindspot. The Morning Matchup pairs the most dramatically different left vs. right headlines on the same event. New users get a teaching-focused version; veterans get deeper editorial analysis. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link.

Question 11

What is the Morning Matchup?

Accepted Answer

In every daily digest, the Morning Matchup highlights two headlines about the same event — one from a left-leaning outlet and one from a right-leaning outlet — that demonstrate the starkest framing difference. It's designed to show how the same facts can read like different stories depending on the source.

Question 12

What is the Evening Shift?

Accepted Answer

Check back after 9pm Central and you'll see a brief summary at the top of your briefing explaining what changed since the morning — which stories escalated, what's new, and what shifted. Stories also get badges: NEW for stories that weren't in the morning briefing, and ESCALATED for stories that picked up significantly more source coverage during the day. The Evening Shift turns Signal/noise into a twice-a-day habit: morning for the full picture, evening for what moved.

Question 13

What are Micro-Predictions?

Accepted Answer

Each morning, Signal/noise generates a yes/no prediction question based on the day's top story — something specific and resolvable, like whether a vote will pass or a market will move. You vote YES or NO, and the community split is hidden until after you commit (so you aren't anchored by other people's answers). Predictions auto-resolve within 48 hours. Your accuracy and streak are tracked as a Forecaster Score on your settings page. You can also vote directly from the daily digest email — just tap YES or NO without logging in.

Question 14

What is the Weekly Blindspot Report?

Accepted Answer

Every Sunday, you receive a summary of the week's most lopsided coverage. It highlights stories where one side of the political spectrum had significantly less coverage than the other, patterns in editorial omissions, and shifts in bias across topics over the week.

Question 15

What is Deep Dive?

Accepted Answer

Deep Dive gives you an extended 500-word analysis of any story cluster. Click "Deep Dive" on any expanded story to get a detailed breakdown with quote comparisons, timeline context, and deeper framing analysis. Results are cached, so viewing the same deep dive twice doesn't cost extra. Free users get 3 deep dives per day on the platform key; users with their own API key get unlimited access.

Question 16

What is Reality Check?

Accepted Answer

Reality Check is an instant fact-checker built into Signal/noise. Paste any claim, headline, or social media post and it will: extract the core claim, search our recent stories for matching coverage, run external verification queries, and deliver a verdict (Verified, Misleading, Unverified, etc.) with confidence level, sources, and explanation. Results are shareable via unique links.

Question 17

How do Prediction Markets work in Signal/noise?

Accepted Answer

We pull live data from Polymarket — the largest prediction market — and match markets to stories using keyword overlap and AI filtering. Each story card shows a Market Signal tag when relevant markets exist. You'll see the current probability, daily price change, and whether markets diverge from media coverage (e.g., media frames escalation but peace odds are rising). This adds a "what do people with money on the line think?" signal alongside traditional reporting.

Question 18

What are Independent Voices?

Accepted Answer

Independent Voices are 40+ curated writers, newsletters, and independent publications — from Stratechery and Doomberg to Seymour Hersh and War on the Rocks — that operate outside the traditional media ecosystem. We fetch their RSS feeds and match their posts to stories using the same keyword-overlap approach as our market matching. Each story card shows a Social Pulse tag when independent voices have covered it. The "Off the Radar" section on your daily brief highlights posts from independent voices that aren't being covered by any mainstream sources — the stories your 135+ institutional sources might be missing.

Question 19

What is Compare?

Accepted Answer

The Compare page lets you select any two stories and view them side by side. It shows the headline, source distribution, bias breakdown, and summary for each — making it easy to see how coverage differs between events or how coverage of the same topic has changed over time.

Question 20

What is Timeline?

Accepted Answer

Timeline tracks ongoing narratives across multiple refreshes. Select a tracked narrative (like "Iran War" or "2026 Midterms") and see how coverage evolved day by day — which outlets joined coverage, how bias shifted, and when key developments emerged. It's built for following multi-day stories.

Question 21

What is the Clarity Rating?

Accepted Answer

Your Clarity Rating is an ELO-style score that tracks how well you understand media bias. It goes up when you answer correctly in the Daily Decode quiz and Guess the Source challenge, and goes down when you get things wrong. Everyone starts at 1,000 and the score adjusts based on difficulty — getting harder questions right earns more points. There are five tiers: Casual Reader (0+), Informed (900+), Analyst (1,100+), Decoder (1,300+), and Clear-Eyed (1,500+). Your rating appears in the nav bar and on your daily briefing.

Question 22

What is the Daily Decode?

Accepted Answer

The Daily Decode is a daily quiz that tests your ability to detect bias and framing in real headlines. Each day you get 5 questions drawn from the latest news cycle — you might be asked to identify which outlet published a headline, spot the framing difference between two articles, or pick the most neutral summary. Your answers affect your Clarity Rating. A new quiz is generated each night.

Question 23

What is Guess the Source?

Accepted Answer

Guess the Source (the Challenge page) shows you a real headline and asks you to identify which news outlet published it. You get 5 rounds per game, and each correct answer earns Clarity Rating points. It's a quick way to test how well you can spot the editorial voice of different outlets across the political spectrum.

Question 24

What is the Intelligence Briefing?

Accepted Answer

The Brief page is your personalized daily summary. It includes a priority story, a situation report of top stories matching your followed topics, a Blind Spot Watch section showing stories from the side of the spectrum you read less, your keyword watchlist alerts, Off the Radar posts from independent voices, and the Daily Decode quiz. Think of it as your morning intelligence briefing — everything you need to know in one place.

Question 25

What is Topic Following?

Accepted Answer

In Settings, you can select which categories you care about — Politics, War, Economics, Business, Technology, Science, or Sports. When you follow specific topics, your feed and daily digest email will only show stories in those categories. Leave all topics unchecked to see everything.

Question 26

What is the bias rating feature?

Accepted Answer

Below each story, you can rate where you think the overall coverage falls on the political spectrum. This community feedback helps calibrate our analysis over time. You'll see how your rating compares to other users' ratings.

Question 27

What about the Sources page?

Accepted Answer

The Sources page has two tabs: Institutional Sources shows all 135+ enabled news outlets grouped by category with bias indicators and ownership info. Independent Voices shows all 40+ curated writers and publications with descriptions and bias ratings. Both tabs have search and filter controls. Individual source pages show detailed stats on how each outlet contributes to coverage.

Question 28

Is Signal/noise available on mobile?

Accepted Answer

Signal/noise is a responsive web app that works on any device. Add it to your home screen on iOS or Android for a native app-like experience (PWA). The daily digest email is optimized for mobile reading.

Question 29

What is the History page?

Accepted Answer

The History page lets you browse past analyses. Every refresh is saved, so you can go back and see how stories were clustered and covered on previous days. Select any past refresh from the timeline sidebar to view the full analysis from that point in time.

Question 30

What is the Trends page?

Accepted Answer

The Trends page tracks how media bias shifts over time across different topics. It shows the average bias score and source distribution for each category, comparing this week to last week. Over time, you can see patterns like "Iran war coverage shifted 0.3 points rightward this week."

Question 31

Why is a source showing as "error" or "timeout"?

Accepted Answer

Some news sites block automated access or have slow servers. We use Google News RSS as a fallback for many blocked sites. If a source consistently fails, it may be temporarily unavailable — the story clustering still works with whatever sources respond. For independent voices, after 5 consecutive feed failures a voice is automatically skipped for 24 hours to avoid slowing down refreshes.

Question 32

Can I delete my account?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Go to Settings and scroll to the bottom. Click 'Delete my account' and type DELETE to confirm. This permanently removes your account and all associated data including prediction history, reading patterns, bookmarks, and saved preferences. You'll receive a confirmation email when deletion is complete. This action cannot be undone.

Question 33

Tips for getting the most out of Signal/noise

Accepted Answer

Follow the topics you care about in Settings to personalize your brief and digest. Set up keyword alerts for specific events you're tracking. Check the Daily Decode quiz daily to build your Clarity Rating. Use Deep Dive on stories where the framing gap surprises you. Read the Off the Radar section to find what your mainstream sources are missing. Compare how your bias lean shifts over time using the Trends page.