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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @03:42PM (1 child)
Just add up the number of big money interests in the military industrial complex, and then it's not too difficult to imagine one of the CIA contacts who feeds propaganda for uncritical reprinting in the same news media that is too arrogant to accept that people are beginning to see through its inadequacies also feeding it clever propaganda about Tesla (not all propaganda), SpaceX (definitely propaganda), SolarCity (small sample size), the Boring Company (ditto), Neuralink (ditto), and Hyperloop (ditto).
We should be just as suspicious of the Musky One as we are of all people who control such a disproportionate amount of the wealth the average American gets paid shit per hour to create.
However, the news media sells itself as a bastion of credibility, nay the gold standard of credibility. A (nearly) libelous hatchet job on the part of the media is not excused no matter who their target is.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @04:10PM
The 'media' flip flops so fast on who is in favor and who is not you can not keep up.
They are an outrage hate machine designed to keep you mad at all times. Turn it off and you will feel better. I did. I used to hoover up every last little tidbit I could. I lived for how my team was sticking it to the other team. Once you realize it is not about news but selling you an idea, or at best some crazy drug with a long list of side effects, you feel better.
I remember the 24/7 news cycle when it first came out. People had said 'what are they going to do with the other 23.5 hours of the day? There is not that much news'. Well those people are still right (sorta). The 'news' orgs found out how to fill that other 23 hours. With opinion pieces disguised as news, and commercials for overpriced drugs and pillows. Talking heads taking on the 'point counterpoint' style of 'news' arguments. Talking heads who magically can read the minds of politicians and 'the common folk' sometimes at the same time! Talking heads who make sure whatever news that does show up is cherry picked to fit their demographic. Then when it does not fit re-write it so you still look like you were right.
Anyone who thinks they can fix the news has to remove the opinion hit pieces that *all* of the news pumps out at a high rate. That is not going to happen. That junk is fairly cheap, gets good ratings if you get a pretty/funny enough person doing it, and fills up the time for when real news may show up.
I think Elon is just having a bit of fun at the medias expense. Calling it 'pravduh.com' is him poking fun at them. That he could not get pravda.com just makes it a bit more funny. I am sure the 'news' will tell us how this is a terrible thing and a attack up the very foundation of the world.