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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

#51

Post by idlewords »

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.

This sounds like a job where people don't get paid.

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

#52

Post by YazIAm »

idlewords wrote: post #50

What problem does this solve that existing reputation systems don't? When I read a New Yorker article, for example, part of what my subscription is paying for is considerable skilled labor by a group of in-house fact checkers. How does moving this work to an outside free platform improve the situation? Moreover, how do you replicate work like calling sources to verify statements before publication? I wrote a short pi…

The goal is to capture the fact checking process and enable any reader to review it for themselves. Certainly some publications currently have an excellent fact checking process, but very few make their fact checking open and transparent.

As for "how do you replicate work like calling sources to verify statements before publication?" Good question. Currently this is only designed to open up the fact checking which involves public primary sources. I think that a platform that focuses on doing that subset of fact checking really really well can add a lot of value to the public discourse.

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

#53

Post by YazIAm »

scott_s wrote: post #47
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!

For this to be useful at scale, you will need to not just design this for good-faith users, but also against bad-faith actors. If this catches on, it will become a target of coordinated disinformation campaigns. Have you been thinking about what to do against that?

Indeed, currently all "verified" reviewers are manually vetted.

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.

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

#54

Post by delish »

idlewords wrote: post #50

What problem does this solve that existing reputation systems don't? When I read a New Yorker article, for example, part of what my subscription is paying for is considerable skilled labor by a group of in-house fact checkers. How does moving this work to an outside free platform improve the situation? Moreover, how do you replicate work like calling sources to verify statements before publication? I wrote a short pi…

> What problem does this solve that existing reputation systems don't?

To turn its slogan into an analogy: the New Yorker is high quality closed source software. If you disagree with the New Yorker, you can't file a bug report.

You might say, "I wouldn't want to," either because of something on your end, or something on the New Yorker's end. Continuing the analogy, there are closed-source models, open-source-but-closed-development models, and open-source-community-driven models.

I'm typing this because the problem this solves for me is I often disagree with the news, and I would like to fact check them. Perhaps not--as you mention--by calling sources, but by citing other evidence.

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

#55

Post by IronWolve »

Wikipedia talk pages are a perfect example of facts ignored and removed from articles to push an agenda. You can see how a narrative can be pushed with half-truths and selective editing. Same thing is happening in News, its agenda driven, not truth driven. Entertainment opinion pieces that pretends to be news. People are just bending the facts to support their personal politics.

If Wikipedia can't be factually accurate due to editors personal politics, how do you keep those personal politics out of a fact checker?

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

#56

Post by 7373737373 »

YazIAm wrote: post #24
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 :)

Definitely have a look at https://tlsnotary.org/ !

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

#57

Post by YazIAm »

IronWolve wrote: post #55

Wikipedia talk pages are a perfect example of facts ignored and removed from articles to push an agenda. You can see how a narrative can be pushed with half-truths and selective editing. Same thing is happening in News, its agenda driven, not truth driven. Entertainment opinion pieces that pretends to be news. People are just bending the facts to support their personal politics. If Wikipedia can't be factually accura…

You're 100% correct in that one can cite completely valid facts and still push an agenda by omitting other facts. I'm actually working on a "fact comment section" feature where any reader can pin facts to an article (facts that still go through the same rigorous and open fact checking process as everything else). Facts which readers deem are important extra context.

However, I'd argue that even without such a feature, having an open standard for facts openly verified from primary sources will add a lot of value to current public discourse.

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

#60

Post by all2 »

CoryG89 wrote: post #38
Fiahil wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally important : Don't display reputation to users other than themselves. Humans will attributes higher trust level to individuals with higher reputation, despite them occasionally dropping false claims.

Does it really make sense to call it "reputation" if you're the only one that can see it?

I think so. You could probably pick something better.

Its more of a Pavlovian reinforcement than reputation. You see what got you lots of points (what people liked) and you're more apt to do that in the future.

By keeping everyone else blind to someone's scores, you don't have as much popularity bias creeping in.

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