deb8able.net

Fact check web content by the crowd

Friday, December 18, 2015

Deb8able.net is an online project that aims to help people separate facts from falsehood on the internet. Fact checking by ‘the crowd’ Deb8able helps people gain insight into the truthfulness of online publications. It does so by letting people check statements using arguments for and against them. Other readers can then vote for the arguments they agree with. Arguments that many people agree with will make it to the top of the list. Less relevant or flawed arguments will automatically end up at the bottom. This way Deb8able combines the power of the internet – huge amounts of freely available information – with the power of ‘the crowd’. A group knows more than one person, no matter how smart this person is. By combining the intellectual powers of many readers, information becomes much more valuable. How does this work? Read something that you’d like to start a discussion about? You can do this either through a Deb8able button on the website you find yourself on, or by means of a Deb8able plug-in in your web browser. Both of these let you highlight the statement concerned and note down arguments for and against it. Other readers can then respond to your arguments. The discussion is visible in the article under discussion and at Deb8able.net.