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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: 2) by crafoo on Monday May 28 2018, @11:51PM
I don't see how it could hurt. It might get subverted, but then all of mass media has been subverted and morphed into propaganda arms of various moneyed political groups and amateur empire builders. The danger is that it's subverted and the majority do not recognize it. Which, I think, is a real danger considering how many people site politifact as if it wasn't anything but pure propaganda.
The media's shrill and shrieking opposition to Musk's proposal simply proves his point. End of argument. The very thought some outside group would rate their bullshit level has them frothing at the mouth. I hope Musk gets his site up and running and a 100 other sites follow suite. Then we can build a Metacritic of media bullshit artists. It would be glorious and oh such a bitter thing for them to swallow their own pill.