Sound Start, But Problem’s Bigger & Needs Multilevel Solution

You correctly highlighted three levels of content quality/reliability problems that need solutions:

1. Micro — daily fake news stories. As discussed, numerous efforts are attacking this problem. The difficulty is that the spectrum of what constitutes “fake” new is quite broad with lots of grey areas. Under the best of circumstances any success will require an enormous and expensive army of people and machines that goes on endlessly. Suffice it to say this is like trying to rid the world of malevolent intent.
2. Ordinary — news publisher content quality. Historically, reputable news publishers took responsibility to police themselves. There are occasional lapses and some are better than others, especially now given competitive economics of the business. Here, a dynamic database of criteria weighted publisher quality/reliability scores has great merit and over time reputational ratings will succeed in sorting out good, better, best.
3. Macro — general publisher content quality. While attention is now focused on fake news, it’s just the tip of the iceberg because all content ends up on the Net. In this respect, all content impacting people’s quality of life issues can and do experience fake, bad, erroneous, out-of-date, and misleading informational problems. But this type of content is generally accessed based upon an unexpected need and without prior knowledge or experience. So there needs to be a similar type of dynamic database of criteria weighted publisher quality/reliability scores applied to these content areas.

It’s important to note that the mainstream acceptance of virtual assistants with conversational interfaces, and eventually augmented reality, is contingent upon reliable/quality content. Conversing with a machine or person who regularly provide bad information has no mainstream appeal.

In this respect, while receiving micro-level fake news is bad, and ordinary-level publishers acceptable, receiving macro-level unreliable quality of life content carries serious, direct consequences to real life situations.

My company has patented process for a dynamic database that evaluates reliability criteria, weights and corroborates them, and distributes publisher quality/reliability scores across all key content domains and methods of platform access. Moreover, we provide appropriate licenses to both public and private entities (if interested, contact me — doc@dochuston1.com)

Suffice it to say, we’re forevermore living in a digital universe. The lasting importance of resolving these content quality/reliability problems is only rivaled by privacy concerns as the paramount public and civic discourse issues slowing progress.

Doc Huston