Elon Musk, the infamous mastermind behind Tesla Automotive and SpaceX, has suggested that he's going to travel into a new dimension: fact-checking the credibility of journalists.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda …</p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999367582271422464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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To some, this idea sounds marvelous, whereas there is a much-needed impartial and fair assessment of the “news” delivered by countless “journalists” both on major corporate networks, and on independent media outlets.
We currently have a vast array of supposed “fact checkers,” but when you dig a bit further, it seems as if there are unwittingly hidden political biases inside of those organizations.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Even if some of the public doesn’t care about the credibility score, the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves.</p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999369623484039168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The most known of all fact checkers is Snopes, which itself has faced allegations after it was exposed that one man and his now separated wife founded the company in their basement, with heavily left-leaning opinions.
It would later be alleged that the founder of the website engaged in countless lies, fraud, and even out prostitutes on his honeymoon expenses, as per the<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4730092/Snopes-brink-founder-accused-fraud-lying.html"> Daily Mail</a>.
There's also Politifact, who more often than not would be seen calling right-leaning media outlets false until their operation was exposed.
It would soon be uncovered that Politifact had a conflict of interest, in that it shares a megadonor with the Clinton Foundation, as reported by<a href="https://www.weeklystandard.com/mark-hemingway/conflict-of-interest-politifact-and-the-clinton-foundation-share-megadonor"> The Weekly Standard</a>.
One could go as far as connecting the dots and finding similar occurrences with the smaller fact checkers, albeit they're not even worth mentioning at this point because they're not prevalent enough to be quoted by the mainstream.
So could Elon Musk provide that much-needed platform? Possibly. Others would suggest that Elon himself leans left, and some would claim he leans right.
We won't delve into speculation about Elon Musk outside of saying that the South African native-turned-American is largely successful in his ventures with both Tesla now being made in America and SpaceX achieving enormous goals in space flight and space transport.
Is he genuinely interested in providing a platform that regular people can use to rate journalists? Maybe.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Create a media credibility rating site (that also flags propaganda botnets)</p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999374720368689153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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I would suggest that the masses would largely abuse such a platform.
As we've seen with Netflix reviews, or reviews on Amazon or other internet marketplaces when someone profoundly offends a liberal or a conservative, those parties of followers flock en masse and organize on other platforms or even in private group chats.
This does happen, and it's undeniable, which is what makes a system of open voting impossible to conduct on the internet.
Even systems which require a unique IP address per user to take a vote in a poll can easily be overturned by the use of proxies or VPNs, rendering those results out of touch with an individual opinion.
It's uncertain how Musk could avoid this problem.
However, if he's genuinely intent on providing such a platform, and ensures that there will be no bias from those operating the system, it could be helpful.
That seems impossible, but as they say, expect the unexpected.
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<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;"><b>The Goldwater</b></span>
Attempting to Fact a Liberal media ….
I feel he has ventured to close to a Black-Hole will swallow him whole .