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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Elon Musk has floated [twitter.com] the idea of creating Pravda, a web site that would allow users to rate/review the credibility of media organizations and journalists [cnn.com]. Pravda Corp. was formed in Delaware and incorporated in California, according to an October 19, 2017 filing [ca.gov]. Jared Birchall, a director at Musk's Boring Company [sec.gov], 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 [twitter.com].

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 [revealnews.org] a lot lately [thestreet.com].

Also at The Verge [theverge.com], New Statesman [archive.fo], and The Washington Post [washingtonpost.com].

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