Can Elon Musk Fight Fake News Fairly? His New Site Should be on the Blockchain
Not sure if everyone here will agree with me, but I think Elon Musk might just be the one person who could pull off a "fighting fake news" site and do it right. He just announced today that he's going to create a website to fight fake news and he might call it Pravda. I admit that I'm sometimes a little wary of these ideas (especially when we see Facebook ranking whether an article is true or not.) But I think Musk could do it right.
What do you think?
Musk said that this new site will let the public rate articles based on how truthful they are, and it will track journalists' and publications' credibility score. But he's also going to set something up to watch for bot voting and to guard against that.
Considering that he made the flame thrower he was talking about AND the boring company, I'm thinking this is going to happen.
What do you think? Would a site like this be best served on the blockchain? Would it compete with Steemit in any way? I think it would be great if it could work kind of like Steemit, in that people would be awarded cryptocurrency for participating.
Musk seems objective enough to be the right person to create something like this. He recently told a journalist on Twitter: "Thought you’d say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks “You’re just like Trump!” Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more. You lost your credibility a long time ago."
You can visit his Twitter page if you want to vote on his idea.
What are your thoughts?
You can read my full story about this on Heavy.
Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons.. Photo by JD Lasica. License is here.
A central authority to evaluate the credibility or the truth is certainly the wrong way. To stay with the George Orwell references, I don't want a Ministry of Truth.
In my opinion, it must be a decentralized platform and all entries must be immutable and transparent. Only in this way trust in the platform can be gained.
Furthermore, verified identities are required for all voters.
I also dislike Facebook's approach to counter fake news with unknown correctional bodies and artificial intelligence. The involved persons and algorithms must be known. But if the algorithms are known they can be bypassed.
Musk should use Blockchain technology or a technology with similar benefits for his attempt. However I think he is more likely to use artificial intelligence.
Ohhhh, AI for this would be fascinating! Right now it looks like it will let the public vote on credibility, which could also go crazy wrong. I agree: a decentralized platform with immutable and transparent entries, plus verified identities, seems like the only way this could work to avoid bot voting.
But I wonder how an AI-led credibility platform would work?
(And great point about a central authority... We definitely don't want a Ministry of Truth.)
I think he will pull it off, and we'll watch Tesla crumble. He's done yoeman's duty pissing off his sources of short term funding lately, and if you pay any attention to investor sentiment, the numbers for Tesla aren't conceivably going to result in continuing operations.
Musk is clearly a PR genius, and perhaps that's due to his sincerity. I cannot say that his ability to proselytize retail investors lacks sophistication or competence, but a frontal attack on the enemedia--which is necessary, while Tesla has served it's purpose according to his prior statements that he intended it to stimulate EV production by all manufacturers--will recruit many sophisticated and machiavellian foes to storm the gates of his vulnerability.
I don't think Tesla can make money anytime soon, but it's demise may not materially affect Musk's vision or plans. Spacex is practically kryptonite to naysayers, and his hard work and good luck have really built a launch company that has jumped the shark in terms of delivery costs.
What he really needed Tesla to do was create chassis, power trains, and carriages suitable for Mars, and I reckon he's already done that, as well as his PR goal of stimulating EV production by the entire market. A lot of companies are coming out with EVs at staggering losses just to compete in the market he pioneered, and that goal has been attained.
Investors in Tesla won't forget being burned however. He's made no such dismissive statements about Spacex, nor are his goals achievable should Spacex falter. He won't die on Mars if Spacex dies on Earth before he does.
He gutted Tesla to save Solar City, which he also needs to continue to innovate solar with to enable his Mars colony. He may well find a way to rescue Tesla investors using Solar City. I wouldn't bet against him, as he is very aware that retail investors have faith in him, and if Tesla lets them down, he will bear their ire as a result, no matter what he says.
I hope he doesn't succumb to the lure of using Spacex to save Tesla, despite it's profitability potential being nominal to do so, as Spacex is existentially important to the future of the human race, and Tesla and his public adoration aren't. He may, like any mortal, be incompetent to reckon the enmity the enemedia can bring down on his head, and if he miscalculates with Spacex, we could be trapped in the clutches of a Trump/Xinping alliance.
We need to be able to vote with our feet, and soon. Spacex may be our only hope of that. Neither Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, or NASA are going to make that possible.
Thanks for the interesting question =)
Thank you for this fascinating comment! I keep forgetting that Musk has said that pretty much everything he does has the bottom line goal of getting people to Mars, which of course would mean SpaceX is his top priority. You've really outlined a lot of intriguing points about how all that could work together (and how even if Tesla doesn't last forever, it wouldn't be the end of the world.)
I had also forgotten about how he had said one of his purposes for Tesla was to spur EV development. That has definitely worked!
And interesting, I hadn't drawn the connection between Solar City and Mars, but it makes perfect sense.
Thank you for this enlightening response!
I like the concept and using it with Steem. I just find it odd he's publicly against labor unions but ok with something like this.
The labor union question came up on Twitter when he announced this, and this was his most recent response on Twitter, in case you're interested. I admittedly have not researched the labor union question much, so I can't really comment on it.
"I’ve never stopped a union vote nor removed a union. UAW abandoned this factory. Tesla arrived & gave people back their jobs. They haven’t forgotten UAW betrayed them. That’s why UAW can’t even get people to attend a free BBQ, let alone enough sigs for a vote."
Labor unions are little more than controlled opposition today.
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Oh no! It looks like maybe I was given a reward and it was then removed? Looking at the comment history, it seems like there might have been a glitch of some sort. Hope you get it worked out!