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* Cross link and reorg docs Signed-off-by: Carl Gieringer <78054+carlgieringer@users.noreply.github.com> * PR edits Signed-off-by: Carl Gieringer <78054+carlgieringer@users.noreply.github.com> --------- Signed-off-by: Carl Gieringer <78054+carlgieringer@users.noreply.github.com>
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# Background | ||
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*This page provides a longer background of the thoughts and motivations leading to Howdju.* | ||
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Information online is growing quickly. Besides the large amount of information generated daily by | ||
traditional news and institutional sources, social media and a variety of new media sources are | ||
generating information faster than the average person can keep up. New tools are needed to help | ||
people aggregate and filter the content that is most relevant to them and to help them to evalute | ||
new information efficiently. | ||
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One of the greatest impediments to human well-being is lack of mutual understanding. Howdju is | ||
designed to expose users to alternative viewpoints to try and help people to understand better where | ||
the other is coming from. It is also intended to provide people the best information to evaluate | ||
different perspectives on issues to help inform their dialog. | ||
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Howdju is a platform to help people stay informed. Its primary objective is to help people | ||
effectively understand the massive amount of information that we increasingly need to digest to make | ||
decisions about our lives. Howdju’s vision is both to help people remain informed about the high | ||
level events and currents of our societies, while allowing them to dig deeply into the specifics of | ||
those events, all while helping us to keep track of what was learned. | ||
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## Hypotheses | ||
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Howdju is based upon on these hypotheses: | ||
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- We are more open to alternative perspectives when we share why we believe what we believe than | ||
when we are told what is correct or incorrect. (The name “Howdju” comes from “How d’you know | ||
that…?”) | ||
- Doubt and resistance will persist until we are confident that all sides have had an opportunity | ||
to present alternative perspectives and respond to others’ perspectives. | ||
- To maintain trust and accountability, a human-centered aggregatator must be in the loop of any AI | ||
generated information. | ||
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## Research supports this approach | ||
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[Research](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23808985.1999.11678963 "Daniel J. O’Keefe (1999) How to Handle | ||
Opposing Arguments in Persuasive Messages: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of One-Sided and | ||
Two-Sided Messages, Annals of the International Communication Association, 22:1, 209-249, DOI: | ||
10.1080/23808985.1999.11678963") indicates that two-sided messaging that includes counter-arguments | ||
is much more persuasive than without. | ||
[Research](https://www.poynter.org/news/fact-checking-doesnt-backfire-new-study-suggests "Fact-checking doesn't 'backfire,' new study suggests, Alexios Mantzarlis, November 2, 2016 citing | ||
Wood, Thomas and Porter, Ethan, The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual | ||
Adherence (December 31, 2017)") also indicates that the “backfire effect” may occur for isolated | ||
incidents based upon wording of the correction. “[B]y and large, citizens heed factual information, | ||
even when such information challenges their partisan and ideological commitments.” | ||
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## Democracy & social cohesion | ||
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Democratic government depends upon its citizens getting good information in a timely fashion. If | ||
citizens do not receive good information when they need it, or, worse, if they receive bad | ||
information, then democratic government suffers. Special interests that do not necessarily reflect | ||
the best interests of a country can influence opinion with bad information, leading to the break | ||
down of the concensus which is necessary for democratic government to survive. | ||
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As societies grow in population, citizens grow increasingly disconnected from each other. This is | ||
just an outcome of the limit on the human ability to maintain relationships and keep track of | ||
information. At the same time, as technology advances, a society’s ability to create and share | ||
information increases. But a society’s ability to separate good information from bad information | ||
does not necessarily grow at the same time. This creates a dangerous situation where segments of the | ||
population can become disconnected from one another in opinion, based upon a lack of consensus of | ||
what is true. | ||
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In smaller, less technologically advanced societies, social cohesion was created by a combination of | ||
editorialization and citizen communication. These two channels of verifying information cannot keep | ||
up with a growing society: technology has weakened the power of editorialization, both for good and | ||
for bad. Now that anyone can create “news” in a few easy steps (1. register a domain, 2. perform a | ||
few clicks to install a blogging platform with a professional theme, 3. write anything you want at | ||
all, 4. share via social media and/or advertising.) it can be difficult to tell the good news from | ||
the bad. Growing population has weakened citizen communication. | ||
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Assuming increasing population growth and technological advancement, democratic governments must | ||
discover ways to balance the influence of bad information. The thesis of Howdju is that in order to | ||
do so, a system must bring together all the information, both the good and the bad, present them | ||
side-by-side, and provide tools for tracking the good and the bad information. |
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# Howdju's Docs | ||
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Howdju is a platform for crowdsourced factchecking. These docs describe Howdju's | ||
features and concepts. | ||
Howdju is a prototype platform for crowdsourced factchecking started by by [Carl | ||
Gieringer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlgieringer/). These docs describe | ||
Howdju's features and concepts. | ||
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Howdju's goal is to decrease misunderstandings by making it convenient to access and | ||
share factual information relating to debated topics. | ||
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## Prototype? | ||
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Prototype means: | ||
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- Functionality may be incomplete or unreliable | ||
- Functionality may change with new ideas for how the platform should work. |
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# Organization | ||
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Howdju currently has no formal legal entity, but these are the requirements of | ||
any future organization: | ||
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- All income must come from sources that will preserve the platform's independent nature. The | ||
platform will not sell advertisements, but instead will receive donations and possibly offer | ||
subscription-only features targeting professional users. | ||
- Profits will be reinvested into R&D for the platform and donated to causes relating to media | ||
literacy and critical thinking. | ||
- Always develop source code in the open. | ||
- Cooperate with researchers: work with sincere and qualified researchers to provide | ||
privacy-sensitive access to Howdju data in order to advance societal understanding. | ||
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A non-profit corporation structure would probably best serve these requirements. |
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