Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday May 28 2018, @02:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the takyon++ dept.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @03:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @03:30PM (#685167)

    There are so many basic things that the media uncritically accepts and then proceeds to take for granted in subsequent coverage of the same story.

    Oops. s/basic/extraordinary/, as in extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday May 28 2018, @03:42PM

    by Arik (4543) on Monday May 28 2018, @03:42PM (#685170) Journal
    Basic also means fundamental, and made perfect sense to me in that sense there.

    The fundamentals are of incredible importance, a house doesn't stand long if the foundation is shaky.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?