Blockchain transparency applied to newsfeeds: the cure for Fake News?
May 9, 2017 5:59 AM Subscribe
Polish startup Userfeeds is developing new algorithms to help create transparency around the sources of news. They seek to highlight Return-On-Attention the most important metric of the attention economy, primarily by 'unbundling'.
Sometimes called 'uberization', unbundling frees what was previously limited to the privileged few and makes it available to everyone.
From their blog post, wonky formatting sorry
Newspapers were bundles of written word and paper. The Internet unbundled words from paper and changed the entire industry. Previously the economics of paper defined the way we consume written words. Newspapers, books, magazines were shaped by the underlying economics of paper. With digital distribution of written words through the Web, the economics changed, and we got blogs, tweets along with entirely new business models. These business models were enabled by near zero cost of digital distribution.
What if Facebook's ranking algorithms were unbundled from its data layer, and let different ranking providers compete for users' attention? Would it fix the filter bubble/echo chamber problem? Would new business models emerge by tinkering with this now open data layer, and defining the Return-On-Attention as a measure of increase in one's economic, mental or physical well being?
Yeah, cranial soak time required to understand the concept, let alone figure out its benefits and drawbacks.
But if you want to join them in the experiment, they are encouraging interested parties to get involved in app development and testing. Oh, and Springwise notes, they just raised seed funding.
See also crunchbase, techcrunch, and dngeek.com.
Sometimes called 'uberization', unbundling frees what was previously limited to the privileged few and makes it available to everyone.
From their blog post, wonky formatting sorry
Newspapers were bundles of written word and paper. The Internet unbundled words from paper and changed the entire industry. Previously the economics of paper defined the way we consume written words. Newspapers, books, magazines were shaped by the underlying economics of paper. With digital distribution of written words through the Web, the economics changed, and we got blogs, tweets along with entirely new business models. These business models were enabled by near zero cost of digital distribution.
What if Facebook's ranking algorithms were unbundled from its data layer, and let different ranking providers compete for users' attention? Would it fix the filter bubble/echo chamber problem? Would new business models emerge by tinkering with this now open data layer, and defining the Return-On-Attention as a measure of increase in one's economic, mental or physical well being?
Yeah, cranial soak time required to understand the concept, let alone figure out its benefits and drawbacks.
But if you want to join them in the experiment, they are encouraging interested parties to get involved in app development and testing. Oh, and Springwise notes, they just raised seed funding.
See also crunchbase, techcrunch, and dngeek.com.
Techbros: "Let's fix a social problem by throwing the latest technology buzzword at it!"
VCs: "Shut up and take our money (that we conned someone into giving us)!"
posted by SansPoint at 6:48 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
VCs: "Shut up and take our money (that we conned someone into giving us)!"
posted by SansPoint at 6:48 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
We respect your privacy and won't share your email with anyone.
The contemporary version of "the check is in the mail" or "I promise to pull out in time."
posted by chavenet at 6:53 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
The contemporary version of "the check is in the mail" or "I promise to pull out in time."
posted by chavenet at 6:53 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
The problem is inherent to the idea of content customisation. If there's no common mass media that acts as a vehicle for creating and maintaining a broader social consensus and common, base level of understanding of reality, there's nothing to anchor anyone firmly to any idea of a consensus reality. It's fine and necessary for society to allow for a diversity of tastes, preferences, and values, but when everyone in a society lives in a personalized media bubble they don't even consciously realize they're choosing to live in, that's just obviously going to lead to a breakdown in the ability of people to achieve understanding and agree on anything, isn't it? No matter how you implement the idea?
posted by saulgoodman at 6:57 AM on May 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 6:57 AM on May 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Blockchains are used here because they're effectively write only with a guarenteed chain of trust. If I submit news with my key and to a reputable vendor anyone will know the news came from me. They can see my corrections and appending to the story. It's all about sorting out the massive game of telephone that fake news involves.
Sadly I wasn't inb4 "blockchains bitcoin lol" but they're incredibly useful tools to keep track of things in a transparent and verifiable way so knee jerking need not apply.
posted by Talez at 7:06 AM on May 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
Sadly I wasn't inb4 "blockchains bitcoin lol" but they're incredibly useful tools to keep track of things in a transparent and verifiable way so knee jerking need not apply.
posted by Talez at 7:06 AM on May 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
For all the bitcoin lols, it has become a semi-legitimate currency for semi-legitimate goods. It is doing the thing it set out to do, more or less.
posted by ryanrs at 7:35 AM on May 9, 2017
posted by ryanrs at 7:35 AM on May 9, 2017
Of course, then they'll have to introduce Attention Rights Management, to ensure that the users don't commit attention fraud by ignoring the ads and “sponsored content” that subsidises their free services. And it goes without saying that bypassing ARM will be a crime with severe penalties.
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
From the standpoint of an end user, this is even worse than Facebook's constant seduction because it requires a higher order of engagement: people already evaluate what they're looking at as they look at it, but with this system, we would need also to compare intermediaries that assort information to people based on data about online behavior. The idea here, I think, is that by making algorithms transparent through blockchains, we would cease to distinguish between what we call "news" and the means by which it is produced (from the Springwise article):
The company is developing a system that would require information providers and distributors to prove, via third party algorithms, the strength of each individual claim.
I'm not sure how Userfeeds thinks that algorithms can prove empirical claims, though, and without a plausible mechanism for doing this, the entire endeavor remains just another way of driving engagement by capturing not just more mindshare but by trying to force people into a deeper, far more abstract, and more intensive form of engagement. But who's going to want to spend as much time trying to figure out which algorithm you prefer as you do reading articles or otherwise engaging with content? It seems like this just gives people another thing to do and think about, again from an end user standpoint, and it's hard to see it working well for that reason.
posted by clockzero at 10:07 AM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
The company is developing a system that would require information providers and distributors to prove, via third party algorithms, the strength of each individual claim.
I'm not sure how Userfeeds thinks that algorithms can prove empirical claims, though, and without a plausible mechanism for doing this, the entire endeavor remains just another way of driving engagement by capturing not just more mindshare but by trying to force people into a deeper, far more abstract, and more intensive form of engagement. But who's going to want to spend as much time trying to figure out which algorithm you prefer as you do reading articles or otherwise engaging with content? It seems like this just gives people another thing to do and think about, again from an end user standpoint, and it's hard to see it working well for that reason.
posted by clockzero at 10:07 AM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't bet on this one but an (anonomyzable) chain of responsibility that can be extended or followed backwards for refutation and validation, that's easy to use for the authors/ editors/ distributors/ readers/ researchers/ commentators would be a significant tool. Would NOT prove truth or accuracy, but make it easier to follow threads once evidence is added to a story or generate comprehensive refutations when a story is found to be pigs breath unverifiable.
It would need to be integrated into browsers and content distribution tools.
Open and very verifiable code would be pretty important.
posted by sammyo at 11:51 AM on May 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
It would need to be integrated into browsers and content distribution tools.
Open and very verifiable code would be pretty important.
posted by sammyo at 11:51 AM on May 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
For whatever it's worth, I had no idea what the heck these guys are (this one guy is?) proposing from the links included in this post. However, after a bit of poking around I found this earlier link on their blog, "Building ‘Google For The Economic Web’ on The Ethereum Blockchain" which is a little more explicit about what they're actually proposing to do.
Now, after reading that article, I have no idea what the Springwise article is talking about when they state "The company is developing a system that would require information providers and distributors to prove, via third party algorithms, the strength of each individual claim." As far as I can tell, this is not at all what they're proposing. And, as far as I can tell, they're not proposing using blockchain technology to track, validate, or refute articles per se. While in the Medium article linked mentions the "'uberization' of Facebook" (which, lol, is kind of a stretch), I think what their pitch is more like "what if upvotes were a bitcoin?" Or, perhaps it's more like, "let's make whuffie real with blockchains."
One weird thing about their proposal is that they say stuff like "Instead of building new Twitter, we want to allow users to curate the existing Twitter using the token. And Twitter is just the start because our reputation model applies to other content on the Web as well." implying that their new whuffie system is going to be bolted on atop existing sites like Twitter and Facebook. And, they point out correctly that these are kind of siloed, walled garden type places which is not super-great. However, this raises the obvious question: why would Twitter or Facebook or whoever allow these guys to breach the walls of their walled garden? I mean, FB won't even let Instagram pics show up natively in Twitter. I guess the underlying belief is that either their blockchain-y stuff will be able to evade any obstructions that Twitter, Facebook, etc... will establish or that these players will buy into this system and co-operate.
posted by mhum at 12:15 PM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Now, after reading that article, I have no idea what the Springwise article is talking about when they state "The company is developing a system that would require information providers and distributors to prove, via third party algorithms, the strength of each individual claim." As far as I can tell, this is not at all what they're proposing. And, as far as I can tell, they're not proposing using blockchain technology to track, validate, or refute articles per se. While in the Medium article linked mentions the "'uberization' of Facebook" (which, lol, is kind of a stretch), I think what their pitch is more like "what if upvotes were a bitcoin?" Or, perhaps it's more like, "let's make whuffie real with blockchains."
One weird thing about their proposal is that they say stuff like "Instead of building new Twitter, we want to allow users to curate the existing Twitter using the token. And Twitter is just the start because our reputation model applies to other content on the Web as well." implying that their new whuffie system is going to be bolted on atop existing sites like Twitter and Facebook. And, they point out correctly that these are kind of siloed, walled garden type places which is not super-great. However, this raises the obvious question: why would Twitter or Facebook or whoever allow these guys to breach the walls of their walled garden? I mean, FB won't even let Instagram pics show up natively in Twitter. I guess the underlying belief is that either their blockchain-y stuff will be able to evade any obstructions that Twitter, Facebook, etc... will establish or that these players will buy into this system and co-operate.
posted by mhum at 12:15 PM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
mhum: So, basically, it's a The Producers style scam. Thanks.
posted by SansPoint at 12:31 PM on May 9, 2017
posted by SansPoint at 12:31 PM on May 9, 2017
There is huge value in decomposing news articles into constituent claims and then accounting for the spread of those claims between articles.
For example, one might want to:
posted by ethansr at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2017
For example, one might want to:
- Block all news articles whose author has written an article that claimed that "Michael Flynn was fired for lying to Mike Pence"
- Then flag all articles which contain a claim which originated from an article written by one of those authors
posted by ethansr at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2017
ethansr: "There is huge value in decomposing news articles into constituent claims and then accounting for the spread of those claims between articles."
Ok, sure. But is this what this company is proposing to do? I really can't see anywhere where they're claiming anything of the sort.
posted by mhum at 6:52 PM on May 10, 2017
Ok, sure. But is this what this company is proposing to do? I really can't see anywhere where they're claiming anything of the sort.
posted by mhum at 6:52 PM on May 10, 2017
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posted by empath at 6:15 AM on May 9, 2017 [4 favorites]