This topic, unfortunately, is laden with heavy political and historical context that are inseparable from the one and only truth out there: we donât know whatâs true and whatâs not.
From the days when everyone believed the world was flat and a few were persecuted for saying it was round, to modern day countries whose news is so perfectly controlled that its citizens believe their leader is a god, misinformation has never just been so simple as true vs false.
Itâs also propaganda, for political gain, for financial gain, and for power gain, and it goes in both directions - sometimes itâs unsubstantiated claims about health from those peddling snake oil, sometimes itâs unsubstantiated claims about those trying to reveal the truth to us.
It always comes down to this: we donât know.
In recent years, the world has seen dozens of examples of things called crazy or conspiracy theory turn out to be completely accurate, for example.
So, the only useful data analysis I can think of is an aggregator - organized into hierarchies of categories for easy organization, an aggregator that includes every theory that exists and its connected data in the form of unfiltered references including news articles, studies, expert whitepapers, blogs, wikipedia articles, random musings, etc. On this aggregator, someone wondering if the world is flat can review all the related information about it that has been collected, and make their own decision.
But beyond that, what kind of objective approach is there that doesnât inadvertently hide possible truths? Worse, how can we know that trying to hide âfake newsâ isnât actually hiding the truth? I fear we canât, and I donât want the responsibility to try to design something that would tell everyone else whatâs true or not.
