A new page, My Social Network/Fact Checking, has been added to my Social Networking+ notebook for My Idea Outlet. The contents can be found below.
News has typically taken a one-way approach. A news agency creates a news piece, and you either read or watch. You have no say. The media has embraced this one-way approach as a way to manipulate the public. They can say whatever they want. Nobody can properly call them out on their deception. We have reached a point where the media doesn't even try to properly inform the public.
I have ideas for a new news model that embraces inclusionary social networking. I'm not quite ready to go that far. Instead, I want to discuss a component of fact checking that social networking in general can and should support. We should have flexibility to point out errors in posts. To an extent, this is already possible. Because people may not read all the comments to find corrections made by the public, the usefulness is limited.
The nature of inclusionary social networking allows different social networks to find their own solutions. I'm not entirely sure how I would handle this issue myself, but I would likely look for something along the lines of a report button. This button would likely have limited usage since I prefer not to control other people's content, but it can have some value. In particular, algorithms could be created to help filter out bad posts and to generate messages relating to concerns with accuracy.
When reporting inaccurate content, a section (sentence, image, etc.) could be selected with a message written to indicate the reason for concern. Algorithms could be designed to determine if a warning should be displayed and who should see that warning. This can open a discussion on the specific concern to help establish the legitimacy of a claim. If there is enough support for marking information as inaccurate, prior readers could be informed.
In addition to this form of fact checking, profiles could be established for various sources. If a source proves to be unreliable, exposure to their posts could be reduced. There should generally be at least some pathway for people to change their ways, but I don't think that it's a good idea for a habitual liar to be as prominent as someone who appears genuinely honest.
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