Elon Musk To Fight Fake News, Rate Journalists' Credibility Via a Site Called 'Pravda'

Elon Musk took to Twitter today to announce his next project: a site called "Pravda" that ranks journalists' credibility and fights fake news. "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," tweeted Musk. "Thinking of calling it Pravda..." Musk continued: "Even if some of the public doesn't care about the credibility score, the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves." A subsequent Twitter poll (exposed to mostly Musk followers) reveals that most people believe "this would be good."

Accredited journalist Mark Harris replied to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO with a copy of a Statement and Designation by Foreign Corporation form that names the Pravda Corp. "Er, he's not kidding folks," Harris tweeted. "I noticed that one of Musk's agents had incorporated Pravda Corp in California back in October last year. I was wondering what it was all about..."

GeekWire has catalogued a string of replies between Musk and Twitter users who are supportive/unsupportive of his plans.

Comments

So the public rates their credibility?

[llamalad]

The same public that can't differentiate -or simply doesn't care about- the difference between fact and fake news?

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[john of sparta]

"the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves".....profit margin defines.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no way this will be exploited or abused by anyone with any sort of agenda.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[ranton]

Meta-moderation by paid researchers should be able to differentiate between users who are able to identify credible news and those who are not. Then you simply adjust the algorithms to either ignore them or even reverse their recommendations.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[AlanBDee]

Journalists that I know personally try very hard to have accurate facts and to not let their bias taint their work. While not all journalists are like that I believe most try to be. Editors and publications do have to care more about the bottom line and sadly getting the news out quickly is more important then accuracy.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Ichijo]

Journalists that I know personally try very hard to have accurate facts and to not let their bias taint their work.

That's why nobody pays much attention to them.

While not all journalists are like that I believe most try to be.

That's why most journalists aren't famous.

Editors and publications do have to care more about the bottom line and sadly getting the news out quickly sensationalism is more important then accuracy.

FTFY.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[AlanBDee]

Not all the public is so easily fooled; one of the things I like about /. is that most of us are very critical thinkers.

If his system allows people to rate the credibility of an article but then those users also have a credibility that gives them more or less weight I think the system can balance out. For example if I rate an article as very credible but then most people rate it as not very credible then my credibility would go down. Then when I rate other articles that rating has less impact because my overall credibility is isn't very high. On the other hand, if I've rated dozens of articles and my rating is close to what others have rated it then it shows that I'm fairly credible.

Open question: what systems would you recommend Elon Musk put in place to help make the system work?

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Rei]

Seriously. I like most of Musk's projects, but this is counterproductive.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Rei]

I feel about this "Pravda" project the same way I felt about him joining Trump's business council - "This is not going to end well."

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the public is doing a pretty good job at getting CNN to issue a constant stream of corrections to all their bullshit articles.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Rei]

The thing with Musk, you just never know. It could be a joke as in "the joke is a name to make fun of people who make false stories", or it could be "the joke is that the entire concept of the site is a joke".

That said, Elon being upset with people lying about him in the press is no joke. UAW and their allies particularly. One of the big ones recently was a campaign from a pro-union group called "Reveal" arguing, among other things, that Musk demanded that the factory not use yellow safety tape or have forklifts beep because it upset his aesthetic sensibilities. Which is something that can literally be proven false in less than a minute on Google Images or YouTube. And then when the falsehood was pointed out to them, of course they issued no correction, but just continued their attack-series-disguised-as-journalism.

Meanwhile, UAW still can't even get enough Tesla employees to sign that they even want a vote. Musk called for a vote on Twitter the other night. Sounds very confident that UAW would lose any vote by huge margins, as UAW dropped NUMMI like a hot potato during the recession to protect their Detroit base, there was double the injury rate when they were there, and nobody working for UAW anywhere gets stock options as part of their compensation.

I'm sure that the fact that UAW supporters have started harassing his girlfriend online didn't help his view on the manner any.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[greenwow]

Since Woodward and Bernstein, too many journalists have tried to create the news rather than just objectively report on it.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[deathguppie]

The same public that believes the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked and that mass shooting victims are all actors.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[AmiMoJo]

I hope it's a joke, because it sounds like he invented GamerGate.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[sg_oneill]

Its usually higher in the food chain the problems occur. A friend of mine worked for NewsCorp and was consistently mortified at how his stories would be edited to hell and back to put this weird conservative spin on things , often to the point of straight up reversing the meanings of sentences. An example he gave was one where a particular politician had announced a raft of policies that would likely have been quite popular. A number of quotes from politicians of both side generally supportive , except one who completely hated it. By the time the story got past the editor, all the supporting quotes where removed, the bit about the politician who opposed it had been moved to the first sentence and the story retitled "Nationals condemn irresponsible Spending bill", making the story about a minor party conservative disliking a bill by a senior Labor party member, instead of it being about the bill itself. My journalist friend resigned in protest soon after. Alas, in Australia, its either work for Murdoch or join the welfare queue

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[Reverend Green]

Perhaps your "facts" are less uncontroversial than you imagined.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[c6gunner]

The US is a lawless oligarchy.

And with that one short sentence you've done an excellent job of demonstrating that there are Slashdot users who aren't critical thinkers. Well done!

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[Reverend Green]

Oh oh oh - can I decide who to hire as semi-official paid researchers? Oh, this will be FUN!

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[Reverend Green]

Bot poetry?

Or just a drunk Progressive Philistine?

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[llamalad]

âoeNo one in this world, so far as I know â" and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me â" has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.â H. L. Mencken

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[thomst]

AlanBDee confided:

Journalists that I know personally try very hard to have accurate facts and to not let their bias taint their work. While not all journalists are like that I believe most try to be. Editors and publications do have to care more about the bottom line and sadly getting the news out quickly is more important then accuracy.

As a former computer industry trade journalist and columnist, I agree with your assessment of what has come to be called "mainstream media" journalists. Most of them try to get their facts straight.

What complicates their effort is both time pressure considerations (which is to say deadlines and the constant quest for "scoops"), and the standard "three sources" requirement for news stories. The second of those generally means having to include quotes from critics, and there are a lot of those in the auto industry, when it comes to Elon Musk.

(Which only stands to reason, since Tesla is a major disruptive force in that industry, and Detroit has been playing catch-up ever since reality caught up to their pet journalists' confident prediction that Elon's company would fold before he shipped a single car.)

And, speaking again from experience in the trade journal industry (albeit in a totally different sector), those guys - and they're almost all guys in the auto industry version - have the same ethical problems that I found many of my former tech colleagues had. To put it bluntly, a lot of them are basically whores.

There are very different standards in trade journalism than there are in the mainstream version. For one thing, there's bribery, both direct, and via major advertisers (who are the exact same companies about which these people supposedly provide objective coverage) bringing pressure to bear on these rags' publishers to run stories that are favorable to them. For instance, I was fired from my first job at McGraw-Hill's LAN Times when the pubilsher gave the editor who had hired me the boot, and replaced her and her staff with a bunch of ex-PC Week clowns. The first I heard about the new regime was a call from the new Features editor, who opened by telling me, "We want to coordinate content in the back of the book with the News section."

"So, you're telling me you want me to write columns about the latest dot-zero release of Microsoft's crapware, or Intel's me-too networking gear, instead of writing about Internet policy and technology - which is what I was hired to do to begin with?" I replied.

"I wouldn't put it like that," he responded, "but, yes, that's basically what we're looking for."

When I declined to accept the invitation to spread my legs for the magazine's advertisers, I was informed that my services would no longer be required. A year later, McGraw-Hill dispatched the useless, smudgy Xerox of Network World that LAN Times had been transmogrified into to a farm upstate.

So, I went to work for a different mag - which folded after 3 issues - and eventually wound up at Boardwatch, where I spent six glorious years, before the bumbling idiots at Penton Media did the same clueless thing to it that McGraw-Hill had done to LAN TImes. (That happened just months before the first dot-com bubble kerploded, taking most of the computer trade pub industry with it - including the animated corpse of Boardwatch, btw.)

But, a couple of years before that happend, I got so sick of the advertisers dictating content, that, in a column headlined "Crystal Blue Persuasion" (from November, 1999), I closed with a whole section addressed to PR people on how properly to bribe me to write about their clients' products or services.

(What I did not do - what I would never do - is to promise that what I wrote would be flattering. That's something that whatever gadget or service I'm writing about has to convince me it deserves And most of 'em don't.)

You should read it, when and if my ISP gets its Apache fu

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[fafalone]

Slashdot commenters, like everyone else, suspend their critical thinking process when it's a political issue. The only thought that occurs is 'how can I shape the facts to the benefit of my side'.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[fafalone]

Some research has shown the US is in practice an oligarchy;

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence

Original paper

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Rei]

A large number of new people started showing up and attacking her, not preexisting followers. At the exact same time that they started showing up on Musk's feed and attacking him. And for what crime? Literally nothing more than responding to someone who was repeating the UAW stuff, "he has never prevented them from unionizing it's quite literally fake news". Which is simply true.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[AmiMoJo]

Great example of the problem. We have a simple lie repeated until it becomes truth, and a campaign of harassment justified by it.

The only thing worse than bad journalism is bad crowd sourced "journalism". Let's not have and Pizzagate.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[geekmux]

Journalists that I know personally try very hard to have accurate facts and to not let their bias taint their work. While not all journalists are like that I believe most try to be. Editors and publications do have to care more about the bottom line and sadly getting the news out quickly is more important then accuracy.

Attempting to define fake news as an "accuracy" problem is like trying to define ransomware as a mere coding bug caused by a typo.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They will be meta-meta-moderated.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Cederic]

The only thing worse than bad journalism is bad crowd sourced "journalism".

The corrupt collusion amongst gaming journalists and their support for people doxxing and harassing those that called them out on it is worse.

People tolerate bad journalism. It's corrupt journalism that caused the kerfuffle, and was further exposed by the gaming press's response to it.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[Cederic]

I'm fascinated that you're arguing that the US is lawless, and using as proof the enforcement of (copyright) law.

It's nearly but not quite as amusing as you claiming the US is lawless, and using as proof laws being bought and paid for.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[Cederic]

Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby

David Cameron.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Shemmie]

I did.

I got modded back down, again.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Gilgaron]

Open a new newspaper these days? He already mentioned the welfare queue...

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[blahplusplus]

I'm fascinated that you're arguing that the US is lawless, and using as proof the enforcement of (copyright) law.

It's nearly but not quite as amusing as you claiming the US is lawless, and using as proof laws being bought and paid for.

Copyright law has been extended every time the publics rights don't exist anymore, aka read between the lines. AKA those are laws bought by disney and co, they were written by business lobbyists to prevent the public from owning it's own culture. You go check the constitution copyright law was supposed to be for limited times not infinite times. For all intents and purposes copyright law is effectively infinite. Everytime it came up for review it was extended against the public interest. So that means the government is for the rich families and the corporations not the public.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[mjwx]

My journalist friend resigned in protest soon after. Alas, in Australia, its either work for Murdoch or join the welfare queue

I know a few Journo's from Australia. Unless you land a nice job on the ABC (which is hard to do) most Journo's move into Marketing (AKA Corporate Communications) as that is a more honest career than writing for the papers. At least you're only lying by omission when writing advertorials than lying though your arse writing for The (un)Australian.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[houghi]

I know a TV news editor who amuses himself by cutting talks of politicians in such a way that they say something different than what they intended. He does this for all politicians, regardless of what their actual opinion is.

Now I am not saying that he does this all the time. Just when he is a bit bored. He already does this for several years.

So don't believe what you see, hear or read. (Not even this.)

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Rei]

Oh, and for the record: despite all the media hype breathlessly speculating about it without any evidence whatsoever... AP was (obviously) not on in the recent pond crash. "Obviously" because the vehicle was clearly doing far more than 40 in a 35 zone, yet the virtual impossibility of AP being on didn't - as always - stop press speculation. Most of these "Tesla crash" stories turn out to not have involved AP, but while the crashes and insinuation makes the news, the "boring" actuality doesn't; they just stop further coverage of the ones that turn out to be "uninteresting".

Again, I think this is a bad move from Musk on many fronts. But he is right to feel that the press is being irresponsible. Relentless over-coverage of Tesla accidents creates a false impression (that Teslas are dangerous) which runs counter to the actual statistics (that you're 1/4th as likely per unit distance driven to die in a Tesla than in an average car on the road). The media is supposed to create an informed public, not mislead them.

Re: So the public rates their credibility?

[c6gunner]

"The US is lawless except for all the laws I don't like"

Cool story bro.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[Wootery]

If it becomes politicised, it will discredit itself.

Anyone can make a list. No-one is being forced to consult the list. Unless it appears credible, it will have no adoption or impact.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[sg_oneill]

Or you could make your own publication and edit and publish your own stories?

Literally nobody is going to give you the upwards of hundreds of millions required to start a proper national newspaper. And theres no money in online press. All the online newspapers struggle to stay afloat and depend on either shitty paywalls or abusive advertising.

Easier to just retrain, or go and sell your soul to marketing.

Re:So the public rates their credibility?

[thoughtlover]

The same public that can't differentiate -or simply doesn't care about- the difference between fact and fake news?

Yup, the very same public that fills any jury in America... yes, it's scary being a minority living in an idiocracy.

Biases.

[harrkev]

So he will judge based on his biases. If he agrees with the position, positive karma. Otherwise, negative. Just like pretty much every other news outlet.

Yeah, just like this, but replace "standards" with "news." https://xkcd.com/927/

Re:Biases.

[NicknameUnavailable]

So Musk is trying to replace Reddit?

The public knows

[SuperKendall]

The same public that can't differentiate -or simply doesn't care about- the difference between fact and fake news?

The public has for a long time now been calling out and correcting the media on all sorts of stories. The public, far from "not being able to differentiate" has a better track record of understanding what is real and what is not, than the press itself has for some time...

Re: The public knows

[bursch-X]

A, THAT, public? That's probably not the public inclined to visit a website with the same name as the infamous communist propaganda newspaper.

Re:The public knows

[Gr8Apes]

The same public that can't differentiate -or simply doesn't care about- the difference between fact and fake news?

The public has for a long time now been calling out and blasting the media on all sorts of stories they don't like. The public, far from "not being able to read" has a track record of believing in aliens and conspiracy theories despite the press' attempts at clarification for some time now...

FTFY

In short, the public has proven a most untrustworthy source of determining anything real or accurate. Look at Pizzagate. Uranium One fantasies. The JFK assassination. Roswell. Aliens. The "fake" moon landing. The current focus on "fake news".

Now where's your list that supports you in any way?

Re:The public knows

[sexconker]

Q and the red pill army.

Re:The public knows

[jedidiah]

> I'm gonna need some references, if I'm gonna buy that...

The liberal narrative about Trump trashing MS-13.

Re:The public knows

[greenwow]

Good example. Calling someone an animal that stabbed someone over a 100 times, decapitated him, and removed his heart shouldn't be controversial.

Re: The public knows

[Cyberax]

Disparity in police's use of force is well documented and it's here. It's a fact. Wage gap is there, especially if you look at minorities.

Re: The public knows

[c6gunner]

Yes, and the "media" report it in exactly those simplistic terms, which leaves the majority of the public - including, apparently, yourself - with a mistaken belief about what's going on.

Re: The public knows

[Cyberax]

Nope. You've been brainwashed by MRAs and KKK-ers. It's true. You might not realize it yet, but it's true.

Re: The public knows

[c6gunner]

And now we've come full circle to the ignorance of the general public. However, despite your excellent demonstration, I still hold that he media isn't much better.

Re: The public knows

[mentil]

Maybe that's secretly the point? That the average ignoramus is unlikely to pollute the site... at least until it's too late to do so. Then, like wikipedia, ordinary people find out about and start visiting it.

Re: The public knows

[fafalone]

Everyone has an agenda, Vox ends the analysis when it fits their narrative. When you look further, it's less clear. When you account for threat level, one year showed bias against blacks, but the previous showed it against whites. See here

As I said talking about BLM the other day, we need to stop seeing police abuse through a racial lens and view it through a human lens. Focus on the fact that police seriously violate everyones rights, not whether it's slightly more common for one group or another.

Re:The public knows

[Cinnamon Beige]

The same public that can't differentiate -or simply doesn't care about- the difference between fact and fake news?

The public has for a long time now been calling out and correcting the media on all sorts of stories. The public, far from "not being able to differentiate" has a better track record of understanding what is real and what is not, than the press itself has for some time...

I'm gonna need some references, if I'm gonna buy that...

You somehow missed that the trust in the press is on the decline?

Re:The public knows

[Cederic]

Are you shitting me? A major reason that people in the UK voted to leave the European Union is because the media had been scoring their views and silencing the ones that the media and politicians didn't like.

Shit, it's happening to Tommy Robinson now. I don't actually know what his real views are because I've never gone to hear him speak; I just know that the media is scoring him very very low and thus refusing to give him or his views any visibility.

I think that's bullshit. If he's talking total nonsense then it's easy to demonstrate this. If he isn't then listen to what he's saying and determine whether subsequent change is warranted. If he's breaking the law arrest him.

Then there's the whole online social media side of things. The public gets very rapidly scored, and removed from social media if they go against the politics of the platform. Where there are multiple platforms this may not be an issue, but pretending that creating an echo chamber on Twitter is good for society would be foolish indeed.

Re:The public knows

[Cederic]

What the fuck? You throw out a list of conspiracy theories as supposed proof that the public can't determine anything real or accurate, even though the public use the term conspiracy theory to describe them?

That's the public demonstrating that they don't think those conspiracy theories are accurate, because if they did, those wouldn't be conspiracy theories.

Now where's your list that supports you in any way?

You just fucking provided it.

Re:The public knows

[Gr8Apes]

Nope, sorry. Those things are still making the rounds. A portion of the public believes it. The news has listed them as conspiracy theories. Try again.

Re: The public knows

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, the police's use of force is not well-documented. It is only partially documented, and it's not looking good. In fact, if you read the stories in the (real) news media that investigate overall use of force over the past 10+ years, you'll quickly find out that there's no actual reporting requirement and that a lot of use of force and even complaints are buried at the local level and never even make local news nor are available. BTW, that means skipping all the editorial and opinion pieces, which are rife throughout many "news" media outlets, in some cases comprising almost all of their output.

Regarding the wage gap, yes, it is interesting. However, you never get real information in those stories, because in many cases they are written what I can only assume is a SJW slant. I look for hard evidence such as man with BS degree and 5 years experience in job A making 25% more than woman with BS degree and 5 years in job A as a statistical fact. Not man in job 10A for 5 years with 30 years experience against woman in job 5B for 3 years with 10 years experience. That's apples to oranges and will always be different. I do disagree that largely female dominated jobs such as nursing and teaching are underpaid compared to other jobs in the field with similar requirements that are male dominated, but if men and women in those fields are largely paid equally, then there's no wage gap. What there is is a group of people that need to demand better pay or walk and get a different job. Unemployment is under 4% after all.

Re:The public knows

[Cederic]

A portion of the public believes it

A portion of the public believes fucking everything. That's hardly a challenge to the wisdom of the crowds.

The news has listed them as conspiracy theories.

Except for the news media published by the members of the public that believe they're true. Which, inconveniently for you, means that members of the media believe those theories to be true. Fortunately I'm not stupid enough to claim that because one fuckwit publication believes in a conspiracy theory all media is guilty as charged.

You really are fucking excellent at disproving your own points. You're a fucking magician at it.

Re:The public knows

[Gr8Apes]

A portion of the public believes it

A portion of the public believes fucking everything. That's hardly a challenge to the wisdom of the crowds.

We agree on the first part. I personally do not believe in "wisdom of the crowd". 500 years ago, the crowds thought the earth was flat and the center of the universe. Today, a significant portion (as in majority) of the crowd still believe in an invisible friend and other fairy tales. Sorry, there's no wisdom in knowing what Beyonce's latest song is or what Kim's attire reveals about her butt on a particular day.

The news has listed them as conspiracy theories.

Except for the news media published by the members of the public that believe they're true. Which, inconveniently for you, means that members of the media believe those theories to be true. Fortunately I'm not stupid enough to claim that because one fuckwit publication believes in a conspiracy theory all media is guilty as charged.

You really are fucking excellent at disproving your own points. You're a fucking magician at it.

I see the problem - "news" published by members of the public is not "news media". Otherwise everyone's asshole is producing "news". So, if we define "news media" as established organizations that endeavor to publish actual factual news and not things masquerading as news but are really editorials and opinions (e.g., Fox News exclusively and others such as MSNBC and less CNN as they do have a blurb about the writer at the top on opinion pieces) then we can have a conversation about "news". Otherwise, you're primarily talking about propaganda and opinions, and that's pretty much a waste of time.

Re:The public knows

[Cederic]

Oh, you're so such a sweetie. You just defined 'news media' as 'organisations that publish shit I agree with'.

No fucking wonder you disagreed with SuperKendall's point, he wasn't parroting whatever fucking myths you currently favour.

Re:The public knows

[Gr8Apes]

Oh, you're so such a sweetie. You just defined 'news media' as 'organisations that publish shit I agree with'.

Are you really dead set on proving some pre-conceived point? You just keep repeating the same tripe over and over and claim "I win". (Reminds me of someone....) What I did was define news media as something that actually makes sense and limits it to actual news (facts) so a realistic discussion can be had. If you include generic opinion and define that as "news', we have nothing more to discuss.

Russian newspaper?

[Nethemas the Great]

I think Elon is getting weird, weird even for Elon. I think the stress from Tesla might be cracking him. Pravda BTW is a Russian newspaper.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Pravda is the Russia word for Truth. This implementation promises to be every bit as ironic as the newspaper.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Kjella]

It's a joke from Soviet Russia, though probably an obscure reference in 2018. They had two main newspapers, Pravda which means "Truth" and Izvestia which means "News". Pravda was the official voice of the communist party and Izvestia was the official voice of the soviet government. In English the joke would be "There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth." The current day newspapers are fairly unrelated.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[jythie]

I keep looking for Onion watermarks on the relevant tweets... then I remember what year it is. But yeah.. Musk seems to be getting a bit off. People idealize him because of his money and spending on sci-fi projects.. but the guy himself... not someone I would want to be in a room with.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[ArhcAngel]

He named his car co. Tesla after a super genius who eventually went completely insane and ended up in a relationship with a pigeon. Perhaps he's following a little too closely in Tesla's footsteps.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't think that's lost on him. What I wonder is if he's interested in Truth or whether he's interested in Party Line. Picking the name he did I wonder what his intent is.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[thesupraman]

So, by your measure anyone who has a favorite pet whom they feel an emotional link with 'Is in a relationship with it'?
There are a LOT of pet owners who would easily fit in to that basket, children who cry for days after loosing their first goldfish, lapdogs that are looked after like children.

Of course you need to imply something bordering on bestiality, with some insanity thrown in, in those situations? Interesting.

Or perhaps you just drink the koolaid of the US media a little too deeply - Edison spent a LOT to discredit Tesla, remember - and pretty much succeeded.
After all, he needed to destroy the person who actually did most of his invention for him, which he then stole (after his own ideas turned out to be rubbish).

Re: Russian newspaper?

[bestweasel]

Pravda was a prototype for fake news, blatant lies told with a straight face.
  Pravda.com now redirects to Ukrainian Pravda, whose top story is about "billionaire Ilon Mask" so Mask will need another domain name.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not use something more universal, like 'Veritas'?

Because there's already a "Project Veritas" that's been exposing the illegal sales of aborted human baby organs to medical research companies by Planned Parenthood in blatant violation of the law, complete with video of PP execs bragging about wanting "Lamborghinis".

Re:Russian newspaper?

[TheSync]

Grimes is blowing up Elon's brain. (That is probably a very enjoyable experience)

Re:Russian newspaper?

[ArhcAngel]

I have the utmost respect for Tesla's brilliance. I also believe many of the inventions credited to Edison were created by Tesla when he worked for Edison as a patent clerk. That said, there is a mountain of evidence of Tesla's mental decline from numerous sources. As for the pigeon, here is the relationship in Tesla's own words.

"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."

Many men of greatness eventually succumbed to some form of madness in their later years. And no matter what you may think of Musk. He's clearly brilliant.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[thadtheman]

Correction. Pravada ( AFAIK ) is no longer around. It was never around in Russia. It was the official propaganda outlet of the Communist party of the USSR.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Darkling-MHCN]

Read more about it here...

https://www.pravda.ru/news/wor...

or the google translated version for the comrades you can't speak russian here...

https://translate.google.com/t...

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Vitus Wagner]

Pravda is not just Russian newspaper. It is chief propaganda newspaper of the Communist party since 1912, i.e. even before Russian revolution.

So, Americans would hate this site, because it is something Russian, most Russians would hate it because it remind them of communists and Soviet times, and Russian communists hate Musk anyway, because he "stole" what they think biggest communist government achievement - human space flight technology.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Cinnamon Beige]

Or perhaps he has actually read Tesla's own words, which document the various issues Tesla had with mental health. Incidentally, if you check the timeline? Edison's smear campaign against Tesla definitely looks to have been a significant factor in Tesla's decline there.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

fairly unrelated [citation needed].

Re:Russian newspaper?

[houghi]

The last bird Elon dated looked a bit better than a pigeon.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[dcw3]

"It was never around in Russia"

You sure about that?...

From wiki:
Pravda (Russian: , IPA: [pravd] (About this sound listen), "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper

The Pravda paper is today run by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, whereas the online Pravda.ru is privately owned and has international editions published in Russian, English, Italian and Portuguese.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[quanminoan]

Virtually all of Tesla's "inventions" were completely impractical (and no, not "ahead of his time"), whereas Edison's inventions were made for the market. I never understood the whole "Tesla" is a genius thing -- he didn't even believe in atoms, loved eugenics, detested obese people etc., and yet somehow Edison is the asshole.

I have read books on both of them with an open mind. I greatly admire Edison, although he doesn't do a great job giving credit to those in his labs -- not unlike Musk at the helm of SpaceX. Tesla would put on shows and make provocative statements to boost his own ego, but show little of anything practical. The best work he ever did was in Edison's lab, and then joined with many electrical engineers who helped the AC motor/generator.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Why not use something more universal, like 'Veritas'?

Because there's already a "Project Veritas", which is led by one of the few people who has actually been caught commiting voter fraud, and which been caught multiple times deceptively editing footage to make perfectly legal interactions seem nefarious, and in some cases to look like the exact opposite of what actually happened.

Fixed it for you.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[ArhcAngel]

Virtually all of Tesla's "inventions" were completely impractical (and no, not "ahead of his time"), whereas Edison's inventions were made for the market.

You're right...The transistor, Radio, Radar, AC are all so impractical /s
What Edison was good at was selling other people's inventions (AKA made for the market)

It's obvious you read the books Edison or his estate had a hand in crafting. While a bit tongue-in-cheek TheOatmeal does a decent job of chronicling The exploits of Edison and Tesla. Edison was an ass by most accounts. I mean he tortured and killed animals to discredit Tesla FFS! This isn't speculation. He held public demonstrations in which he subjected animals to AC to demonstrate how dangerous it is. All so he could sell his DC power plants (which Tesla helped him create). Had he succeeded we would all be living with a power plant on every other city block.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[quanminoan]

The Oatmeal was the source for most of the strife on Edison today, I'm well aware. The elephant was more Edison's business partner mostly (iirc Morgan), and the elephant was going to be put down anyway as it killed people at a circus. AND on top of this, Edison regretted the whole AC DC feud as his biggest mistake. He was quick to recognize AC's advantages.

Tesla made contributions to AC. He had nothing to do with the transistor, his radio schemes were largely impractical (radio has a rich history with many inventors, and Tesla if wiped from history would result in little if not zero change to the timeline), radar is laughable, etc. He basically screwed around with high voltage and high frequency noting strange effects that others around the world have seen before, but he did nothing with them. More to the point, even if he were a fantastic businessman, his approaches to the various technologies, radio especially, were not particularly good ones.

Margaret Chenney's book on Tesla is the most kind, but there are more scholarly books that even discredit some of his contributions to AC. Edison was not a perfect character (who is?), but was in my opinion overall an excellent person. His biggest fault was not giving credit publicly to his laboratory scientists who pioneered various technologies. He was however a very public figure who relied on his image and publicity. Who does this remind you of today?

Re:Russian newspaper?

[avandesande]

I got paid 1$ for patent rights from the company I worked for that's just the way the business works.

Re:Russian newspaper?

[ArhcAngel]

I can tell you aren't even bothering to look up my references so all I can say is...Enjoy the kool-aid.

This will be gamed

[chrispdx]

I'm sure Russian bots will figure out a way to game this and Alex Jones will be declared America's most trusted news source.

Re:This will be gamed

[TWX]

Alex Jones writes for The Onion now?

Branding

[istartedi]

WTF? Any body old enough to remember the USSR will see "Pravda" and immediately associate it with the USSR's mouthpiece. It's Russian for "truth", and was the butt of many jokes in the USA during the Soviet era. What's Elon thinking here?

Re:Branding

[urusan]

Elon Musk seems like he's really good at messing with people in humorous ways. I mean, an eccentric billionaire's gotta have hobbies, right?

Re:Branding

[zippthorne]

Surely he's making a deliberate reference, which he assumes or intends to be an ironic reference, which time will tell whether merely turns out to be prophetic.

Re:Branding

[cascadingstylesheet]

WTF? Any body old enough to remember the USSR will see "Pravda" and immediately associate it with the USSR's mouthpiece. It's Russian for "truth", and was the butt of many jokes in the USA during the Soviet era. What's Elon thinking here?

Yep. And he's going to get mountains of free press for it. It's "edgy".

Re:Branding

[AdamStarks]

Not unlike Soylent

Re:Branding

[thegarbz]

What's Elon thinking here?

That people would get the joke. Evidently he's wrong.

Re:Branding

[geekymachoman]

Pravda does not mean "truth" like truth means truth in English, although you can translate it like that... and it would be correct (literally), but it would be out of context if you thought about that word the same way you think about truth in English.

Pravda also means justice, and Istina also means Truth. In some Slavic languages, Pravda only means Justice.

"Every time the word "pravda" comes to my mind, I am exhilarated by its stunning beauty. Such a word is not, apparently, to be found in any [other?] European language. Apparently, it is only in Russian that "truth" and "justice" are called by the same word, and fuse together in one great unity. "Pravda", in that great meaning of the word, has always constituted the object of my searches. "Pravda"-truth separated from "pravda"-justice, "pravda" of the theological heaven cut off from "pravda" of the practical earth, always offended me, not just left me unsatisfied. On the contrary, beneficient everyday practice, the highest ethical and social ideals, always seemed to me insultingly impotent, if they were turned away from truth, from science. I never could believe, and do not believe now, that one cannot find such a point of view, by which "pravda"-truth and "pravda"-justice are hand in hand, each reinforcing the other. In any case, working out such a point of view is the most exalted of tasks that human intelligence can imagine, and there are no efforts too great to be expended on it." --N. K. Mixajlovskij (1842-1904)

Just thought that it's interesting, and should be taken into the account. Same as Elon Musks choice for "branding".

Maybe he's also a Russian Spy ? /sarcasm

or more probably... he's trolling all the anti-russia sentiment going on recently ?

Re:Branding

[istartedi]

Truth, justice and the Slavic way?

You got me to look at the thesaurus, and "correctness" seems like the best fit I could find for a merger of truth and justice in English. We have so many words, but you're probably right that we don't have anything that's truth+justice like that.

Would it be correct to assume that when native speakers hear "pravda", they think not only "this is true", but "this is true and we should do something about it"?

I blame Michael Moore

[willoughby]

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in a theater (not my idea). I'd heard of this Moore guy but never seen any of his stuff. I guess I'm more of a critical thinker than most folks but I was struck by:

Moore never makes any claims. He never stands flat-footed, looking into the camera and says, "I believe... and here's evidence of that". A clear claim can be refuted or disproven. If you make no clear, direct claims no-one can prove you wrong.

His film was all supposition, innuendo, insinuation, interspersed with quick shots of Moore looking into the camera with a "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more..." expression.

And people left the theater really believing More had made claims and then backed them up with evidence.

So much of the "fake news" is written in s similar manner: " believes that...", "...is linked to..." (what does that one mean, anyway?), etc.

But I blame Michael Moore for conditioning people to read this crap and really believe they have been given hard facts where there are none. And the press so often write like this now. I think the "news" writers today have grown up with this and don't even realize that's not how you're meant to cover the news.

Re:I blame Michael Moore

[john of sparta]

Moore made ONE claim: Trump would win the election. quote: I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP. link: https://michaelmoore.com/trump...

Re:I blame Michael Moore

[Gavagai80]

The problem is confirmation bias. Michael Moore didn't convince anyone who didn't already agree with him, but he convinced idiots that their opponents had just been disproved. Today's fake news works the same way, it doesn't really fool anybody of a different ideology but it strengthens the partisan echo chamber so that fewer people ever step outside of it. Kind of like religious dogma in that the more absurd it is the more your faith is enhanced by believing and the less likely you are to question anything in the future.

(For the record, I'm as liberal as non-communists come but could never stand Moore.)

Re:I blame Michael Moore

[dinfinity]

"...is linked to..." (what does that one mean, anyway?)

In scientific reporting it means that a correlation was found. It is often and easily misconstrued as a causal relation, either by the reporter or the reader.

But I blame Michael Moore for conditioning people to read this crap and really believe they have been given hard facts where there are none

If everybody does it, it can hardly be one man's fault.

The simple problem is that the human psyche has certain weaknesses which are being exploited more and more effectively by more and more industries, usually for profit. Unless there is sufficient selection pressure towards what a for profit industry should deliver, it will inevitably evolve towards whatever makes the most money.

Re:I blame Michael Moore

[Peter P Peters]

Moore never makes any claims.

Of course he did. A quick youtube to get help recall some info, in the first few minutes there are plenty of verifiable claims, here's a couple:
1. The networks all called Florida for Gore. The first call for Bush came from Fox where the lead guy running the numbers at Fox was Bush's cousin.
2. Florida 's governor was his brother
3. Bush's head of campaign was also in charge of vote counting and was responsible for hiring a firm to 'clean' the voter rolls of mostly black voters
4. Moore then highlights some independent reports that clam gore would've won in a recount
5. The decision was taken to the Supreme court, some of whom were appointed by Bush's father and/or his associates
I don't have time to watch the whole thing again, but there are claims in there, and there are questions which viewers are asked verify for themselves. This is exactly how information should be presented in this format. Remember Moore isn't a journalist, he's a film maker.

Content vs title

[bursch-X]

Things that have the word 'truth' (Pravda is truth in Russian) in the title or name, usually have very little of it in its content or substance.

Re:Content vs title

[quonset]

Things that have the word 'truth' (Pravda is truth in Russian) in the title or name, usually have very little of it in its content or substance.

It's the same reason the Fox tabloid dropped "Fair and Balanced".

Re:Content vs title

[freeze128]

So... Harvard's motto is just "Lies"?

Re:Content vs title

[skovnymfe]

"Mostly lies"

I'm getting tired of this

[93 Escort Wagon]

There seems to be no shortage of tech CEOs who have the emotional maturity level of 12-year-old boys.

But we already knew that about Elon - it's been evident for a couple years. He may be brilliant, but he's also a self-entitled whiny crybaby.

I'm not a shill :)

[WinstonWolfIT]

I've turned off local and regional "if it bleeds it leads" nonsense for decades. For my ($0) money, Reuters world news is about as relevant and impartial as it gets.

Re:I'm not a shill :)

[petes_PoV]

Reuters world news is about as relevant and impartial as it gets.

Ahhh, yes. The outfit that reported about China sending a probe to the Dark Side of the Moon.

Would you like to have another guess?

Re:I'm not a shill :)

[WinstonWolfIT]

Fine. I'm guessing about 3". Who is more impartial?

Who watches the watchers?

[Rick Schumann]

How can we be sure that his 'truth' site (that's what 'pravda' translates to) really is the truth, though?

As the saying goes, there's no truth in the news

[mveloso]

There's no truth in the news and there's no news in the truth.

It has a better ring in Russian, since the two leading organs were Pravda (truth) and Izvestia (news).

Re:twitter ban

[thesupraman]

Congratulations.
Time to go outside to the real world, and get a life perhaps?
You should thank them.

Focus on Cars?

[found404]

Maybe Elon Musk should be focusing on cars right about now. Seems strange that he would divert his energies on yet another project - especially one that's not commercially driven. The problem with "fake" news and/or bias, propaganda, mouthpieces to elitism, etc... is that even a good journalist can have a series of manipulative articles if s/he gets bothered enough about an issue.

Re:Focus on Cars?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

When a big project is going badly, it's a lot of fun to start other projects.

Will it allow you to rate CEO's too?

[kimgkimg]

Hope they're not going to limit it to just journalists. How about having a rating for CEO's too?

Re:Russians

[LifesABeach]

I am reminded of the last words the scorpion said the to turtle, "because I am a scorpion" Dumb ass billionaires that think an apex predators will ever cut them some slack deserve their fate.

Who rate the raters?

[manu0601]

Who rate the raters? And how will the system prevent rating down by raters that just dislike a news?

Re:Who rate the raters?

[mentil]

How about the truth score is moderated by awarded journalists and editors who are well-known for casting light on corruption, and wish to maintain that reputation? That's about as good as one could hope for. Of course, such an effort would be better created by, say, Reporters Without Borders, than a random billionaire.

Re:Who rate the raters?

[manu0601]

And are you sure Reporters Without Borders is neutral? You know about the NED funding controversy, right?

Re:Who rate the raters?

[manu0601]

It's kind of hopeless now that I think about it.

If you studied a bit of philosophy, you know finding the truth is not an easy job.

Re:Who rate the raters?

[mentil]

No. And I don't, actually.

Unfortunately the smarter ppl are still party fanb

[raymorris]

> the smarter people will deem them as non-trustworthy

Unfortunately, in my experience even "the smarter people" are most often fanbois of one of the political parties, and specifically of whichever mouthpiece the party assigns at the moment.

Slashdot commenters, as a whole, probably have a median IQ somewhat higher than the average, yet most of the comments here about anything *remotely* political are obviously driven by the party line. Commenters routinely contradict themselves when asked a couple of questions, because the bumper sticker or tweet by their "team" didn't explain anything, it just announced the conclusion that their fans should defend.

> The important thing to take note, in a system like this will be that some will rate or judge based on
> "how much they like the message" versus the quality and truthfulness of said message,
> and the fact that it can be independently verified.

Indeed, that's the problem. It seems to me the majority of people routinely fall prey to that to the extent that how much the message fits with their pre-conceived, "first guess" ideas is more important than any evidence. We all do that to some extent, myself included. I *try* not to, and I'm not a fan of any particular political party or politician, so that helps.

* When I say "I'm not a fan of any particular politician", I mean I see faults in all of them, and don't follow any of them as "my team". I also see some good things about some of them, so in that sense you could call me a "fan", but I'm more than happy to discuss where I disagree with any of them, and what I see as their failings.

News does not matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

The consumption of news has very little impact on our quality of life. The fact that news media has increasingly become entertainment is inductive proof. If we cared about news relevant to us and the purpose of the 4th estate with respect to democracy, most of us would probably care a lot more about local news rather than the globalist and social movement sensationalism that has become such a large part of the problem.

1. Democratic representation is not democracy. You are voting in who has the right to democracy.
2. International articles are propaganda and designed to preach a particular viewpoint. This media is selectively curated.
3. Social and opinion articles are propaganda and designed to preach a particular viewpoint. The UN has defined the acceptable "point of view".
4. Your own viewpoint and morals are subjective and you have no authority or right to impose these on others.
5. Your own actions are what matter. The way you treat another person has more impact on the world around you than the events in a news article.
6. Because communication and interactions with others make the above two points contradictory, harm principles should be the source of authority.
7. Labels serve to divide.
8. Social Marxism is a tool to divide along identity politics to divide the proletariat.
9. You will be dead and forgotten.
10. All religions are unable to deal with the hypocrisy of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill".
11. None of us is perfect.
12. It is engineers not politicians who are creating the tools of oppression.

Truth by popularity

[MitchRandall]

Now God is real. Noah's Ark is real. The Red Sea parted. Alah is real. Mohamad rose to heaven on a white horse. Santa Clause is real. 13 Twitter trolls threw the election with some Bernie memes against Hillary's $2billion campaign. Assad did a gas attack to kill no one, but to cause the US to attack his country as he was winning. Modern gas pipelines don't leak. Trump is the reason why all of a sudden we're selling arms to Saudi Arabia again like Obama did. Trump has caused everything to go bad because it was perfect before. We don't have money for Bernie's plan for free college. The military needs a $700 billion increase without debate or attention. We can't afford cheaper, single-payer healthcare. Ranked Choice Voting hurts democracy. It would be a mistake to buy meds from Canada at half the price. Repealing Net Neutrality is common sense. Julian Assange is an enemy of the state for publishing their illegal activity. Edward Snowden is a traitor for exposing illegal NSA surveylance. All media agrees on this unanimously, so if any news source is out of line, we can make sure they are called out!

Re:Unfortunately the smarter ppl are still party f

[Ferretman]

> Slashdot commenters, as a whole, probably have a median IQ somewhat higher than the average

From many of the posts in this thread I'm looking askance at that particular assertion.....

Ferret

WHOOSH

[SuperKendall]

You, like many other humorless Slashdot scolds, seem to be unable to grasp that Pravda in the name is a direct reference to the Russian newspaper that is literally a mouth of the state - Musk's Pravda is a pointed reference making a dig at modern "news" which has in effect become a mouthpiece of the Deep State, which as he says is layered in lies that wish to be promoted by the elite.

There's a few other people who understand what this refers to, but alarmingly few otherwise intelligent Slashdot people seem to get the joke. The rot has gone deep indeed.

Re:WHOOSH

[Anonymous Coward]

You, like many other humorless Slashdot scolds, seem to be unable to grasp that Pravda in the name is a direct reference to the Russian newspaper that is literally a mouth of the state - Musk's Pravda is a pointed reference making a dig at modern "news" which has in effect become a mouthpiece of the Deep State, which as he says is layered in lies that wish to be promoted by the elite.

There's a few other people who understand what this refers to, but alarmingly few otherwise intelligent Slashdot people seem to get the joke. The rot has gone deep indeed.

Same AC here. I totally understood the reference. Still I think it is a failure. This very reference is a tired one. It was already old by the turn of the century. Call me 'grumpy'.

Re:WHOOSH

[AmiMoJo]

What are the chances that this crowd sourced truth ends up promoting Brietbart and RT as the most trustworthy sources?

Re:WHOOSH

[dcw3]

About as much as they are for Occupy Democrats.and Mother Jones

Re:WHOOSH

[Green Mountain Bot]

Yup.

Re: There's already a Pravda, Comrade.

[greenwow]

Wrong. A CNAME record must have no other resource records of other types like MX or NS records so you can't create a CNAME for a domain name. BIND will give you the error:

"rndc: 'reload' failed: CNAME and other data"

Also, RFC 1912 says "A CNAME record is not allowed to coexist with any other data."

Re:Unfortunately the smarter ppl are still party f

[rtb61]

Slashdot is a place for ideas not truthiness. Plenty of peddlers of truthiness come to slashdot only to leave disappointed not truthiness here, only ideas, good, bad and indifferent and what slashdotters can do with them. Spread them challenge them, tear them to pieces, distort and abuse them, what ever they fuck they want to do with them at their leisure for fun, for shits and giggles and for profit (don't steal ideas though, that is naughty and super lame and pathetic, make use of sure but don't claim them as your own).

Want to fight fake news, there is only one way, take it to court. So want to challenge stories simply run a web site, where people vote and donate money to sue the crap out of news organisations that lie. Don't like a story, think it is bullshit, take them to court, sue them class action style and make them pay major fiscal penalties and destroy the reputation of the organisation and the journalist. Want to fight fake news, do it in court and let the world watch.

Want to claim the truth, than fucking prove it in court and goes double for government ie the US government funded and supplied terrorist in Syria to rape and kill it's people to force a takeover of government, for geopolitical power and control, an insane psychopathic plan, that shows a profound and deep perversion and corruption of the US political process, some really sick fuckers come up with that plan and did it because it feed their ego and lusts, they wanted to kill, they wanted mass rape, they wanted destruction, they are sick people.

Wish McCain stuck with his 1st VP, Lieberman

[raymorris]

> (our team is the country, not one's political gang)

Indeed. When John McCain ran for President, he first asked Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, to be his running mate. A bipartisan ticket of two moderates would have been interesting. Depending on their leadership skills, they might have pointed the nation more toward what you're talking about, being Americans more than Republican vs Democrat. Of course, McCain ended up with Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, for "reasons".

Sticking with Lieberman against the advice of his team would have been a bold move, doing something really different. I can understand why he changed his mind, but the best leaders do bold things, they make things different.

EU tried and failed.

[Askmum]

Search for "EU vs Disinfo" for the EU backed try to do this. They failed woefully. Basically what is was was EU censorship "you do not follow the EU guidelines and propaganda so you are fake news". And then you're branded as being not credible as a journalist...

Re:Unfortunately the smarter ppl are still party f

[fafalone]

Hey now not all of us. I take pride in being modded troll for angering both the right and left for attacking their positions. Lean (L), but I think the last thing I said about them is they need to knock off their right-wing nutjob economic policies.

WHOOSH Redux

[Cinnamon Beige]

Oh, a lot of us are quite able to grasp that it's a direct reference to the USSR propaganda publication of the same name, whose name was incredibly ironic in practice.

Names for projects tend to be prophetic, if nothing else because they say a lot about the expectations and opinions of the people who started it and will influence those who join in later. (This is a good reason to choose names with positive connotations, or use made-up words.) Naming something aiming to push for the news media to be more credible--which would hopefully also include less bias as well as more accuracy--after a paper that was so known for lies that people were outright surprised to learn that it had occasionally published the truth? Not a good sign.

If the reference was necessary, tack on an Anti- or otherwise riff on it being in opposition to modern incarnations of Pravda.

WTF

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Elon Musk... rating journalists' credibility... and he chose to call it "PRAVDA."

I literally can't think of an analogy for this besides, "starting a company proposing to rate journalists, and deciding to name it after a Russian propaganda outlet". This is the kind of situation I would use AS an analogy, so I'm kind of at a loss.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

Anonymous coward is anonymous, cowardly.

When digging through the layers of irony

[gotan]

... you have to stop at just the right point to see it like this.

"Pravda", a Russian newspaper named after the Russian word for truth, was used by the government to distribute their version of the truth.

Now why should Elon Musks project, apparently ironically given the same name, not follow in the footsteps of its namesake?

I have yet to see a "Fact Finder" or "Anti Fake News" project that is unbiased (if that is even possible), many of them are among the worst in terms of propagating biases.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

Blub, blub, blub...

You angry, brocephus?

Facepalm

[bn-7bc]

Pravda, come on musk check history before 1989, that nsme is not exactly synonomus with un biased reporting. And the central comitie of the Cumunist party of the soviet union calld they want their news paper name back.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

Have you tried Preparation H? I hear it's good for butthurt.

The way to fight "fake news" is education

[gotan]

Teach people to seek a broader view by comparing different accounts, to keep in mind the source of a news story and its possible motivations and biases, to analyze texts for their true information content, presented facts, rhetorical devices and omissions, and most of all teach them to think for themselves.

Also everyone should be aware, that our view of our world is incomplete and be ready to reevaluate and adapt our world view when new facts are presented.

In the end the people will build their own opinions anyways, the best we can do is give them the tools to use reason in the process.

Re:The way to fight "fake news" is education

[Gilgaron]

If I'm feeling charitable, I'd agree, but plenty of people scooted on through primary and secondary education without getting much out of it beyond a diploma.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

Offended? I'm having fun.

Did you call your local pharmacy and check if they have Preparation H? I think it could really help you.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

Ewwwww, mean words from the AC. I'm soooooooooo offended!

But hey - you've read my entire post history. I'm getting free rent on a little corner of your mind. Now that's pretty cool.

Re:"Pravda" name is retarded

[Luckyo]

It's a literal translation of that Russian word.

The news paper by that name on the other hand was Orwellian, just like much of the society it existed in. "Truth is lie".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Agreed. And it's already being done.

[Cederic]

the folks who can differentiate and care to do not need a website like this

One way I can interpret, assess and understand the accuracy of news reporting is by exploring the issues it's discussing, finding out more about them and hearing other viewpoints.

That's rather quicker, easier and more engaging if I can do it as a public exercise in the company of others. That doesn't mean it has to be a website, but it's quite hardly to engage internationally in a coffee shop.

Re: try new Donaldizole

[Reverend Green]

It is kind of entertaining, isn't it? But I'm easily amused.

Re:Here's some news: Elon is a con man

[Rei]

Hope you got your short positions in. If not, why are you turning down easy money? I mean, even if you had to put everything on your credit cards, the interest you'd pay on that is nothing compared to literally doubling your money on Tesla going bankrupt. Or do you not believe your own rhetoric?

Musk and Eric Weinstein need to get together

[sproketboy]

Google him. https://medium.com/@rljunco/er...

What could go wrong?

[DaMattster]

Gee, what could possible go wrong (sic) here? People will downrate the credibility of a journalist simply because they disagree or do not like them. That is hardly an objective way of determining the credibility of reported news. I thought Elon Musk was smarter than this; the idea reeks of utter stupidity. It doesn't take into account the vindictive nature of human beings or the tendency to just scape goat others for personal frustrations.

I said "the smarter people"

[raymorris]

> Hey now not all of us.

I said the smarter people, not you.

Just kidding. You do seem to avoid partisan groupthink more than most people. That's smart.

Here's a challenge for you in that regard - what are some of Donald Trump's strengths, as a businessman and as a President? It occurs to me that most people whose father is a *M*illionaire don't amass $3 *B*illion.

Re:I said "the smarter people"

[fafalone]

Strengths as a President?? Maybe exposing just how foolish the electorate is and how little the Rep's actually value fiscal conservatism. There's some policies that I support... TPP withdrawal, 2nd Amendment rights, rescinding the Lhamon 'Dear Colleague' letter that caused universities to set up kangaroo courts, some of the regulatory rollback was ok (most not)... could probably name a few others. And Gorsuch was the best we could ever hope for from a Republican these days; he's not big on deference to government power. People are more engaged in the political process these days too. But I'm not sure any of these count as strengths. Though his ability to entertain other ignorant people might.
As a businessman, given that if he had invested his money into an index fund that just tracked the market, he'd be much wealthier now, it's hard to see him as better than average. I liked the first couple seasons of Apprentice; he's an ok game show host.

The best thing I can say is that he *used to* say some things that reflected intelligence; like recognizing that legalizing all drugs is the only way to win the drug war and reduce the harm. Then now he thinks the death penalty for trafficking is a good idea. Senility, dementia, whatever... but he used to be a lot more reasonable.

Having one arbiter of truth is not a good idea,,,

[anonymous cupboard]

Having a single source of truth is not a good idea, even if Musk keeps it at arm's length. Having multiple checking sites operated by unconnected organisations would be good so I can get a view of the reliability of a source or story and compare them.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Pravda and Tass

[Doctrinsograce]

I seem to remember a joke that the Soviets were fond of... something about no truth in the news and no news in the truth.

Hey Rei,

[GPS Pilot]

You're my favorite Slashdotter. And I'll be in Reykjavik May 27, May 28 and June 7... may I buy you lunch?

(Sorry to spam a bunch of your posts, but I wanted to be sure you saw my invitation.) Reply to GPSpilot1@NOsPam.gmail.com.

And you're right... it's ridiculous that we can't type a thorn here.

Hey Rei,

[GPS Pilot]

You're my favorite Slashdotter. And I'll be in Reykjavik May 27, May 28 and June 7.... may I buy you lunch?

(Sorry to spam a bunch of your posts, but I wanted to be sure you saw my invitation.) Reply to GPSpilot1@NOsPam.gmail.com.

And you're right... it's ridiculous that we can't type a thorn here.