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Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

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Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#21

Post by YazIAm »

jasonlotito wrote: post #20

How does this handle anonymous sources? Not only do you have to account for what those sources say, but also, a reporter reporting what an anonymous source said can be 100% factual (Yes, the anonymous, valid source was indeed reported accurately), but maybe the anonymous source is incorrect. The reporting is accurate. The source is not. Basically, a lot of grey area. And with that comes the issue of anything not "fac…

Only public primary sources are allowed as evidence on SourcedFact.

Anonymous sources certainly have value within journalism, but the goal of SourcedFact is to make facts that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt with public primary sources stand out from everything else.

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#22

Post by hamitron »

YazIAm wrote: post #11
ahnick wrote: post #7

IMHO reputation is important to build into the base level for a platform like this. Allowing anon registrations and commenting will eventually lead to a lot of noise and abuse of the platform for misinformation. I think some sort of verification of a person's qualifications on particular subject areas and then allowing them to only "fact check" on those qualified areas is required here to have an effective platform t…

Currently (for the prototype), you can start contributing, but your reviews only become public once I've vetted you and given you a fact checking test. Long term the goal is to have an open reputation score for every fact checker. I'm currently experimenting with different implementations of this, and seeing good promise.

What credentials do you have to properly vet people?

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#24

Post by YazIAm »

johnm wrote: post #23

How are you going to deal with underlying "sources" where the content disappears or is changed out from under the fact checkers?

Every source document submitted to the platform is automatically saved to the webarchive, and the webarchive snapshot is used :)

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#25

Post by YazIAm »

hamitron wrote: post #22
YazIAm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently (for the prototype), you can start contributing, but your reviews only become public once I've vetted you and given you a fact checking test. Long term the goal is to have an open reputation score for every fact checker. I'm currently experimenting with different implementations of this, and seeing good promise.

What credentials do you have to properly vet people?

Well first, the point of this type of open fact checking is you can always verify everything for yourself, so you don't need to trust my credentials.

Working on this over the last few years though, I've personally fact checked over 500 assertions.

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#26

Post by Vinnl »

YazIAm wrote: post #2

Been experimenting with building tools to make fact checking more transparent and reusable for a few years now, this is the latest iteration of that project. Feedback appreciated!

Is the primary idea for journalists to share the checks they did, or to have contributors help them check whether the things they mention are factual? The former is what I'd imagine when I hear "open source fact checking", the latter would be called "crowd-sourced fact checking", I think.

Just some feedback that might or might not be useful for your messaging, depending on your goals :)

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#27

Post by Vinnl »

YazIAm wrote: post #16
murph-almighty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I like that this emphasizes use of primary sources, but 1) Some primary sources are dubious, or manipulated. See the multiple versions of Acosta getting kicked out of a White House press briefing. 2) What happens when you have an article that repeatedly cites dubious secondary opinion pieces, but the reader accepts these pieces as fact?

1) Now that video deepfake is a thing, I currently only allow videos as primary sources in rare circumstances (such as the video being published by a verified account of the subject). 2) Only primary sources are accepted. Currently anyone can start contributing, but every claim is still reviewed by a team of verified fact checkers. I hope to scale this long term with a fact checking reputation score.

Aren't text and images more easily manipulated than videos?

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#28

Post by teleclimber »

Nice to see more work in this area.

However as others have said a reputation system for participants is absolutely key. Any platform like this has to assume it is going to be flooded by bots trying to influence opinion on behalf of corporations, foreign governments and activists.

A reputation where users gain reputation slowly (through work, by verifying sources, etc..) become more able to influence opinion, but the reputation drops quickly if they are found to be misleading people. How this actually works is harder than it seems if you want a truly robust system.

When I think of platforms like this I think of Galileo[0]. He was perceived as a troll or heretic in his time, but of course he was right. How do you create a platform that allows correct ideas to flourish even when they go against conventional wisdom?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Re: Show HN: I made a platform for journalists to “open source” their fact checking

#30

Post by teleclimber »

ahnick wrote: post #7

IMHO reputation is important to build into the base level for a platform like this. Allowing anon registrations and commenting will eventually lead to a lot of noise and abuse of the platform for misinformation. I think some sort of verification of a person's qualifications on particular subject areas and then allowing them to only "fact check" on those qualified areas is required here to have an effective platform t…

I'm not 100% sure that lack of specific subject matter expertise should prevent people from commenting. In many cases experts are the best people to go to, but in other cases they can represent entrenched ideas that are precisely the ones that need rethinking.
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