B.S. Detector

Identify fake news sources on Facebook in Chrome.

2 followers

Identify fake news sources on Facebook in Chrome.

2 followers

Safety and Privacy platforms

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Chrome Extensions

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News

B.S. Detector is a browser extension that alerts users to unreliable news sources.

Launch tags:Web App•Chrome Extensions•Social Network

Launch Team

Render Sandboxes: a computer for every agentIsolated compute, persistent state and a real filesystem

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B.S. Detector

Maker

I built this in about an hour yesterday after reading Zuck's BS about not being able to flag fake news sites. Of course you can. It just takes having a spine to call out nonsense. This is just a proof of concept at this point, but it works well enough.

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10yr ago

@selfagency May I ask how do you actually detect questionable sources or simply fake news?

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@bluemonk482 I've compiled a list of domains that are well-known sources of fake news, conspiracy theory, innuendo, and unsourced claims. The domains cover the political spectrum from left to right and I have done my absolute best to be impartial in my selections.

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10yr ago

Heywa

@selfagency @bluemonk482 you should let others tag sources too

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@afallon02 @bluemonk482 anyone can submit a pull request on github

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10yr ago

Heywa

@selfagency @bluemonk482 not very user friendly / the damage of incorrect news spreads quicker than people can generate PR's. Good work though :)

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10yr ago

Product Hunt

I tweeted this an hour ago:

I love the internet.

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10yr ago

@rrhoover the articles aren't fake. Nothing can change information.

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10yr ago

/ syndicate

@tpbtv @rrhoover Paul Joseph Watson throws shade on this "whitelist"

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10yr ago

/ syndicate

@tpbtv @rrhoover Ben Thompson weighs in as well https://twitter.com/stratechery/...

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10yr ago

So basically: 1) fake news sites are curated, so it COULD be biased 2) a news site changing domain / new fake news sites would require a plugin update 3) this does not prevent e.g. Bloomberg from spreading BS. But cool idea :-)

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@lasserafn you can't use an algorithm to detect whether a claim in a news story from a verifiable source like bloomberg or even fox is false. that's why my list focuses on well-known bogus news sites, rather than legitimate news agencies.

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10yr ago

adJelly Size Guide

@selfagency @lasserafn exactly - that's why all this will do is promote a bias towards whole sites (which in some cases may be positive) but as a whole will not solve the issue of fake or slanted news from established sites

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@george_vou @lasserafn the goal of this plugin isn't to determine the factuality of individual articles from legitimate established sources. the goal is to identify hoax sites, conspiracy sites, etc.

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10yr ago

/ syndicate

@lasserafn A free thinker. Kudos.

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10yr ago

Trusted News

@lasserafn A new site changing domain / new fake news sites would *not* require a plugin update. I have no idea why they would think that — unless the plugin is using a client-side cache of websites rather than an API and that would be silly. Fake News being annotated is completely separate to “BS” on legit sites. That could be considered biased. And, we shouldn’t try to solve 100% of the problem — if we can rid the Web of the most obvious ones that everyone agrees with, then that’s a problem worth addressing. What else do we do? Stand back and do nothing?

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9yr ago

Status - 2 - #NoBanNoWall

https://twitter.com/rrhoover/sta... Because of this tweet, I publicly said the thing that was floating in my head that I wanted to make something like this. Then Daniel chimed in to say he'd already done it. This is what PH and Twitter are great for.

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10yr ago

adJelly Size Guide

I do like the concept but I really think this is unattainable. It's cool that you're talking about 'warning' rather than outright censoring but I feel that this is a lazy person's tool. This kind of stuff only deepens people's biases by labelling some sites as 'questionable' - what about when they produce something that is true but you've flagged as 'fake' and then what about when CNN publishes fake stuff that turns out to be true? Will you have a counter/accountability mechanism that informs people how accurate the tool is over a certain time frame? So if your tool gets x amount of 'flags' wrong, it should also be seen as an untrustworthy source. Full self accountability.. I really do like the concept but feel this is a knee jerk exercise as a result of the last week's events. There is not a 'I hacked this together in an hour' solution to this problem. People need to get more diligent, news organisations more honest..the list goes on It's a whole f***ing process :) but this is a start I guess..

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@george_vou i don't care if infowars gets it right 5% of the time if 95% of the time they're lying through their teeth. their domain is getting flagged.

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10yr ago

adJelly Size Guide

@selfagency so so dangerous. You're not flagging fake news, you're flagging sites that 'most people' agree are not viable sources. The truth isn't a democracy, it's the truth. So this remains and will always remain an opinion based, super subjective tool that will pretty much just make people feel good that they are right about something which may be wrong. The big guys get it wrong a lot, those pieces are often the ones that cause the most hysteria and fear as they are seen by millions but your tool would make that ok because they have a newsroom?

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@george_vou there are literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of independent journalists and bloggers who write factually-sourced articles countering mainstream media narratives that are not on this list. the list specifically targets serial offenders who consciously and repeatedly mislead.

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10yr ago

/ syndicate

@selfagency @george_vou News flash Daniel. Infowars has been right more than the MSM.

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@blendahtom @george_vou This video is idiotic pap.

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10yr ago

Article on another add in. Its not that facebook can't...it's that they won't. $$$?? http://www.businessinsider.com/s...

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10yr ago

Great idea! On which base do you mark a website as a questionable source? BTW, just a point of view here, but I personally doubt that this could be efficient at a large scale, as a great part of the people reading those kind of websites already believe traditional media are in fact questionable sources, and all the "rigged" BS that Trump has been serving during the whole campain. Speaking from France, I can tell you that conspirationist/far right/racist/xenophobic websites that are favored by Marine Le Pen's (leader of the far right party, and runner for President in 2017) electors are considered the sources that tell you what the government and the traditional media won't, even though it's most of the time 100% BS.

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10yr ago

@antoineauffret let's not ignore news sources from the far left as well. There plenty of biased news sources on both sides of the political spectrum.

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10yr ago

B.S. Detector

Maker

@antoineauffret i agree entirely that we're living in a post-factual era where people would rather read things that confirm their pre-existing views than that which challenges them. however, this tool is not meant to be the end-all-be-all of solving that larger social problem. it's just to help people who otherwise have discernment not to fall for a bogus story.

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10yr ago

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