A Lie Detector for the Internet. 22 November '11, 08:49pm Follow I’m as bad as the next writer when it comes to making a spelling error now and again. Fortunately, ubiquitous spell check has made that a lot less of a problem. For some writers, however, a grammar goof or a typo are about to become a much lighter concern. According to Nieman Journalism Lab, an graduate student of MIT is developing a way to check for lying in political writing as easily as you check for spelling errors. In a partnership with PolitiFact, Dan Schultz is looking to “bridge the gap between the corpus of facts and the actual media consumption experience.” The project is using natural language processing to verify facts, via API, against the information contained in PolitiFact. As NJL posits, and we hope this to be the eventual truth, Schultz’s work could eventually end up being built into software that would scan sites such as Snopes, allowing you to easily debunk claims that so often get passed around as facts on the Internet.
Truthsquad - Fact-check the news - Overview Page. Sorting out the truth in politics. PolitiFact » Encyclo. PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that examines the statements made by American political figures and pundits. It is run by the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St.
Petersburg Times). PolitiFact was launched in 2007, a project of longtime political reporter Bill Adair (who left the site in 2013) and web developer Matt Waite. According to Waite, it is an attempt to break down fact-checking to an elemental, data-based level, inspired by suggestions by EveryBlock founder Adrian Holovaty. While it offers deeply researched narrative assessments of political claims’ veracity, PolitiFact is most well-known for its six-level ranking system, which classifies claims as “true,” “mostly true,” “half true,” “barely true,” “false,” and — most famously — ”pants on fire.”
The site also analyzes changes in politicians’ policy stances via its flip-flop assessor: “no flip,” “half flip,” “full flop.” Spinoculars re-spun? « previous post | next post » Back in September of 2008, a Seattle-based start-up named SpinSpotter offered a tool that promised to detect "spin" or "bias" in news stories. The press release about the "Spinoculars" browser toolbar was persuasive enough to generate credulous and positive stories at the New York Times and at Business Week.
But ironically, these very stories immediately set off BS detectors at Headsup: The Blog ("The King's Camelopard, or …", 9/8/2008) and at Language Log ("Dumb mag buys grammar goof spin spot fraud", 9/10/2008), and subsequent investigation verified that there was essentially nothing behind the curtain ("SpinSpotter unspun", 9/10/2008). SpinSpotter was either a joke, a fraud, or a runaway piece of "demoware" meant to create enough buzz to attract some venture funding. Within six months, SpinSpotter was an ex-venture. Phelps explains that Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab [...], is devoting his thesis to automatic bullshit detection.
Day 6 | Interview: Truth Goggles. Perceptual Learning Incepted by Decoded fMRI Neurofeedback Without Stimulus Presentation. Critical: Aiding in the audience's critical ability since 2011. MIT Media Lab. 'Truth Goggles' Double-Checks What Politicians Say. As the presidential candidates grip and grin their way across the early primary states, many voters are tuning in online to get the latest information on their policies and plans. But sifting through the muck of rumor, fact and fiction online isn't easy, so MIT grad student Dan Schultz came up with an idea to help: "Truth Goggles. " He shares his creation with host Audie Cornish. Copyright © 2011 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only.
See Terms of Use. As the presidential candidates grip and grin their way across the early primary states, many voters are tuning in online to get the latest information on their policies and plans. But sifting through the muck of rumor, fact and fiction online isn't easy. DAN SCHULTZ: It's a browser plug-in. CORNISH: Of course, the joke about beer goggles is they make people or potential dates look more attractive then they really are. FRANK READICK: (as Carl Phillips) A humped shape is rising out of the pit. CORNISH: You're listening to NPR News.
'Truth Goggles' in Development by MIT Student. An MIT Media Lab grad student is working on a piece of software that will highlight if a news article is real or if it makes false claims. Dan Schultz, the creator of this innovative application calls it the 'truth goggles' and it's his belief that internet users can greatly benefit from since it will be able to instantly determine if certain affirmations are true, without having to do further documenting on the matter.
“I’m very interested in looking at ways to trigger people’s critical abilities so they think a little bit harder about what they’re reading…before adopting it into their worldview,” Schultz told Nieman Journalism Lab. However he wants to clarify that the tool will not detect lies on its own, instead it compares words and phrases that show up in PolitiFact's database, mostly relying on the research done by the site's operators.
“It’s not just deciding what’s bull***.