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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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:17PM (#685223)

    You're not literate if you don't think that the "they" refers to some sort of organization that engages in reporting. Last I checked, Jews are not known for reporting on various current events.

    As far as their accuracy goes, I get my information from numerous sources and what they're covering is generally consistent with what other media outlets are covering. Especially ones that are also not taking corporate money. We don't have time to fact check absolutely everything, which is why critical thinking skills are so important. The news available from NPR is much better than what you see in many other outlets, even if it isn't perfect. For example, the coverage they gave of the great recession was one of the few places that took the time to actually explain what was going on and place appropriate blame on credit default swaps and the ability of corporations to take them out as a wager rather than as insurance on assets they actually owned.

  • (Score: 1) by Arik on Monday May 28 2018, @05:26PM

    by Arik (4543) on Monday May 28 2018, @05:26PM (#685227) Journal
    Ok, if 'they' referred to news organizations (a reading which my very literate mind resisted resisted on the seemingly solid grounds that you did not actually mention them (it is typical to mention the noun first, before using a pronoun to refer back to it subsequently) then my question becomes why can you assume they have bias towards Israel? There doesn't seem to be any intrinsic link between being a news organization and being biased in favor of Israel in particular, I don't see why you would think it could be assumed?

    --
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