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Elon Musk has floated the idea of creating Pravda, a web site that would allow users to rate/review the credibility of media organizations and journalists. Pravda Corp. was formed in Delaware and incorporated in California, according to an October 19, 2017 filing. Jared Birchall, a director at Musk's Boring Company, is President of Pravda Corp., and the addresses are identical:
Musk's idea quickly raised concerns that the reputation of news organizations and reporters could be determined by what could be an easy to manipulate online popular vote.
"Elon's next company: Rate My Professor but for Journalists. What a great idea that won't be gamed immediately in extremely predictable ways," Rene DiResta, who researches computation propaganda and is a policy lead at Data For Democracy, wrote on Twitter.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia, told CNN such a service might might make sense if it employed a careful methodology and was overseen by an independent journalism foundation.
"It's not a crackpot idea," he said. "The question is why should Elon Musk be the one running it and how trustworthy would it be if he ran it."
Musk has been criticized a lot lately.
Also at The Verge, New Statesman, and The Washington Post.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @02:41PM (16 children)
Just $35 million is a "big investment" for billionaires? That is like 10 Mar-a-Lago golf trips: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/18/center-american-progress-action-fund/how-much-do-donald-trumps-trips-mar-lago-cost/ [politifact.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 28 2018, @03:29PM (15 children)
People don't open links. And possibly you're counting on that. Because even VERY LIBERAL Politifact says that's only half true. Because the Fake Number for that, it has nothing to do with me, and it has nothing to do with my presidency. It has to do with former President Obama, with one of his trips. He went to Chicago and he went to Palm Beach, he didn't go to Mar-A-Lago, my Southern White House. He can go if he wants to. Because I let in the blacks & Jews. At the same price as everyone else. And Mar-A-Lago was the first club in Palm Beach to do that. Because of me. I would never join a club that doesn't allow blacks & Jews. And neither should you.
But the Fake Number -- it's from a fake website put up by John Podesta's Center for American Progress. The same outfit that put up the ThinkProgress Fake News website. John Podesta, as everyone knows, ran the Crooked Hillary campaign. He's terrible with cyber, his EMAILS got hacked totally. And maybe his websites are hacked too. Many people have tried to find out, where does the money come from for the Center for American Progress? But John won't say. It may be George Soros or Elon Musk, Russia or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.
And let me tell you, when you invest, very smart to DIVERSIFY. I'm a big believer in diversity. In investments, in clubs, in many things. Because I'm a smart guy. And Soros is a smart guy. That's why we're billionaires!!!!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @03:49PM (9 children)
This is what soylentnews is reduced to. Petty bickering and troll posts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @04:41PM (8 children)
Was it ever anything else?
Well, perhaps, we also engage sometimes in enlightened, erudite debate, in addition to those things. But we've always had to scroll past the trolls and partisan bickering to find it.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 28 2018, @04:56PM (7 children)
I've had it with this asshole. I'm going to go on IRC and ask Ye Powers That Be (TM) at what point exactly we can start Spam-modding him. Just because it isn't the exact same message over and over again doesn't mean it's not Spam.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Touché) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 28 2018, @05:53PM (2 children)
You can Spam mod me at the point when you're a Moderator. At the point when a tweet that's 100% on topic is Spam. And at the point when you want to silence me because I don't make you laugh. Because you don't agree with me, with what I say and what I do. And because you have no better answer than to call me an asshole. Let me tell you, you'd make a great dictator. Because a big part of being a dictator is silencing folks. Like you're trying -- very successfully -- to silence me. You, or the other Spam modders who listen to you, put 2 Spam mods on me. And many, many, many other down mods. And this is a great time to do it. I proclaimed Memorial Day. And the Administrators are enjoying a beautiful holiday, beautiful weather and beautiful country. They promise to look at all the Spam mods -- big waste of their time -- I assume they're not going to do it today. And the Spam modders know that too. It's Censorship Day for them. Maybe they'll censor you too. And maybe you'll censor them.
According to you, for me to say the Center for American Progress and their ThinkProgress website look very corrupt, in a story -- a topic -- about "the credibility of media organizations and journalists" counts as Spam. I assume that's what you're saying on IRC. Because that's the tweet you replied to. Let me tell you, you're totally unfair. And you have nothing to say. You're a self-appointed censor. And maybe the Administrators gave you permission to take it to the next level, somebody's taking it to the next level. With all the Spam mods. Which are a way for the Administrators -- sometimes with help from their flunkies -- to keep people from tweeting. They call it an algorithm, they call it free expression. I call it censorship.
Believe me, I'd love to silence the Fake News media. And the Fake websites. ThinkProgress and many more. But I don't do it, you don't see me doing that. But if you were in my place, I think you would. And I think you'd shut down the (few) honest ones too. Because my little tweets are enough to make you totally blow your stack. Where you're writing nasty tweets in my journal. And in the stories. Your tweets have nothing to do with what I wrote or with the story. Just, you saw I wrote something and you're angry that I'm still writing. I'm a waste of space, according to you. Terrible way to talk about another person. Such a nasty woman!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @09:31PM
Mr. President, I am glad you are here setting the record straight with your tweets on this cyber. Haters are just going to hate. MAGA!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:33AM
Just improve the signal-to-noise ratio and get some new material. You have potential to be both funny and insightful, but you're squandering it. It's becoming impossible to tell how much of this is satire and how much you actually believe, and we have a prime example (Ethanol-Fueled) below who *started* as a troll and seems to have become consumed by his own "irony." Janrinok below more or less agrees, and he's someone whose opinion you *should* take seriously.
Sorry if I'm scaring you by being a "nasty woman," cupcake. I'm sure you're tough enough to handle it, aren't you? Well, aren't you? :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday May 28 2018, @06:52PM
I agree with your sentiment - I too find that he has little of interest to say anymore. Initially it was funny, but it soon grew stale and uninspired so I just skip over his comments.
However, we give everyone the right to speak here until they start to affect the operation of our site. Unfortunately, I cannot honestly say that this is the case with RDT - it is just an annoyance. Muting someone whom you dislike is, I suppose, the beginning of censorship. You can always mod his posts down. You log in as yourself with an account so you must receive the necessary mod points each day. If enough people share your view and do likewise perhaps he will eventually either up his game or, preferably, just stop posting the rubbish that he does so often. Occasionally, oh just so occasionally, he actually says something intelligent but waiting for it seems to take such a long time nowadays.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 28 2018, @09:42PM
Afraid I'm with janrinok on this one. It's not satire that I particularly appreciate but it's normally on-topic to either TFA or what he's replying to. If you find one that's not, feel free to use the Spam mod as his satirical style is too rambling and nonsensical to be simply Offtopic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:03AM (1 child)
Gotta say that I disagree with you on this one Azuma.
RDT does post a fair bit of 'filler', but he has some very witty and insightful things to say at times. He's a very effective caricature account (very occasionally showing us what the author really thinks about Trump) and sometimes offers us all a bit of insight into how MAGA voters might view topics differently to us.
I've come to view RDT as one of those quirky features of SoylentNews. He's certainly less offensive than some of our other quirks, like Ethanol-Fueled.
And I think that it could be perceived that you are operating in a similar fashion to modern left-wing fascists, who love to shut down anything they disagree with by labelling it 'hate speech' or whatever. The left should really think about being more open minded, the way they want the right to be.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:26AM
He's degenerating. He needs to up the signal-to-noise ratio, as he's starting to trip peoples' Poe alarms, and not in a good way. Satire has to be recognizable as satire for it to be effective.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:47PM (4 children)
You gotta love this:
https://i.redd.it/af2wlx3w5g011.png [i.redd.it]
Bias? Nah...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:34PM (3 children)
Parent comment is full of shit, just like his boy Trump.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/26/donald-trump/amazon-no-tax-monopoly-donald-trump-said/ [politifact.com]
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/ [politifact.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:52PM (2 children)
It's exactly as bad as that image shows.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @09:06PM (1 child)
Amazon is a monopoly: False
Amazon pays no taxes: False
Amazon paid no federal taxes in 2017: True
Parent is a deplorable: True
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:14AM
I'd rather be a deplorable than an incel like parent!