4 ms·

> News: We’re facing two major issues with news. The first is fake news. The business model for online media rewards the people who get the greatest number of p

by mjolk 10y ago

> News: We’re facing two major issues with news. The first is fake news. The business model for online media rewards the people who get the greatest number of page views, clicks and likes. That results in a system that prizes virality over truth. This is insanely difficult as interpersonal trust is expensive and getting first-hand information/data is extremely non-trivial. I agree that "mainstream media" (quotes because that phrase makes my mouth taste like ash) has happily devolved into BuzzFeed-style clickbait, but another parrot of AP isn't progress. Paul Graham suggests that the best way to come into a good startup idea is to become the sort of person that has them, which I think applies to informing the public at large -- I don't think it's realistic to expect to build a revenue model off of people that will only give you their eyeballs for 20 minutes a day in the hopes of finding something to have an opinion on. I think this is a much larger, nearly intractable, problem of making societies into the types that are interested in nuance and dry detail.

sparkzilla 10y ago
Paul Graham is right that it has to be something you want to do, but it is possible to build large new media sites on short attention spans -- if your site is designed for them. My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). However, we most likely won't apply to YC this time, or ever again, due to Sam Altman's anti-Trump bias.
- cadlin 10y ago
  No offense, but looking at your website, you've solved the problem of fake news by not showing any news. Unless you're talking about no bias in UFC news specifically.
  - sparkzilla 10y ago
    No offense taken. See my answer above.
- mjolk 10y ago
  > My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). How is crowd-funded media a solution to the problem of bias and factually unsound reporting? I found a link to your site from your profile and it appears to be a gossip and tabloid site with a focus on UFC.
  - sparkzilla 10y ago
    It's early days, so we haven't filled out a lot of our content. While our main newsline is on Conor McGregor, the UFC fighter, there is not much fake news or bias surrounding him. A far better example is to look at the newsline for Emma Sulkowicz, the so-called "Mattress Girl" [1]. Ms Sulkowicz, at that time a student at Columbia University, claims she was raped and in protest at what she saw was the University's lack of action, decided to carry a mattress around the campus for a year. The problem for readers wanting to find out more about her story is that the media is highly polarized. They are either written by feminists, or their opponents. There is no middle ground. If you try to get an overview of the case on Wikipedia [2] you will encounter that site's systemic bias, where the most powerful group on the page "owns" the content. In this case the page is controlled by people sympathetic to Ms Sulkowicz claims and reflects their bias. There is also the issue that Wikipedia does not allow embedded content such as documentation or videos. Newslines fixes the problem of bias by allowing people to build up the page by adding news events. Each news event comprises only the factual information in the source article. Even if the source is highly partisan we can still extract non-biased information. In effect, we are converting articles to data. As each factual summary is added to our system it builds up an unbiased account of the topic, and the reader can then decide the result. Compare this with a traditional news article or biography where the writer starts out with the conclusion in mind. Also, because each post goes through editorial review, the potential for fake new is minimised. [1]http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_Th...
    - mjolk 10y ago
      Thanks for responding. To be sure, I'm asking the following questions in good faith as I want your site to work. > Newslines fixes the problem of bias by allowing people to build up the page by adding news events. If people are just citing existing biased sources, isn't this just trading half-truths? Is the idea that somewhere in the middle is typically the truth? This sounds like it's prime to create middle ground fallacies. > Each news event comprises only the factual information in the source article. Even if the source is highly partisan we can still extract non-biased information. Who is "we"? If it's your staff (or you), then I'd need to trust you. If it's the collective "we", then we're back to bias, but worse because it's masquerading as impartial. > Also, because each post goes through editorial review, the potential for fake new is minimised. Which makes it sound like the prior in the previous issue -- this sounds like closed source Wikipedia.

by mjolk 10y ago

sparkzilla 10y ago

Paul Graham is right that it has to be something you want to do, but it is possible to build large new media sites on short attention spans -- if your site is designed for them. My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). However, we most likely won't apply to YC this time, or ever again, due to Sam Altman's anti-Trump bias.

cadlin 10y ago
No offense, but looking at your website, you've solved the problem of fake news by not showing any news. Unless you're talking about no bias in UFC news specifically.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  No offense taken. See my answer above.
mjolk 10y ago
> My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). How is crowd-funded media a solution to the problem of bias and factually unsound reporting? I found a link to your site from your profile and it appears to be a gossip and tabloid site with a focus on UFC.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  It's early days, so we haven't filled out a lot of our content. While our main newsline is on Conor McGregor, the UFC fighter, there is not much fake news or bias surrounding him. A far better example is to look at the newsline for Emma Sulkowicz, the so-called "Mattress Girl" [1]. Ms Sulkowicz, at that time a student at Columbia University, claims she was raped and in protest at what she saw was the University's lack of action, decided to carry a mattress around the campus for a year. The problem for readers wanting to find out more about her story is that the media is highly polarized. They are either written by feminists, or their opponents. There is no middle ground. If you try to get an overview of the case on Wikipedia [2] you will encounter that site's systemic bias, where the most powerful group on the page "owns" the content. In this case the page is controlled by people sympathetic to Ms Sulkowicz claims and reflects their bias. There is also the issue that Wikipedia does not allow embedded content such as documentation or videos. Newslines fixes the problem of bias by allowing people to build up the page by adding news events. Each news event comprises only the factual information in the source article. Even if the source is highly partisan we can still extract non-biased information. In effect, we are converting articles to data. As each factual summary is added to our system it builds up an unbiased account of the topic, and the reader can then decide the result. Compare this with a traditional news article or biography where the writer starts out with the conclusion in mind. Also, because each post goes through editorial review, the potential for fake new is minimised. [1]http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_Th...
  - mjolk 10y ago
    Thanks for responding. To be sure, I'm asking the following questions in good faith as I want your site to work. > Newslines fixes the problem of bias by allowing people to build up the page by adding news events. If people are just citing existing biased sources, isn't this just trading half-truths? Is the idea that somewhere in the middle is typically the truth? This sounds like it's prime to create middle ground fallacies. > Each news event comprises only the factual information in the source article. Even if the source is highly partisan we can still extract non-biased information. Who is "we"? If it's your staff (or you), then I'd need to trust you. If it's the collective "we", then we're back to bias, but worse because it's masquerading as impartial. > Also, because each post goes through editorial review, the potential for fake new is minimised. Which makes it sound like the prior in the previous issue -- this sounds like closed source Wikipedia.