News BiasCheck
BiasCheck is a Decentralised application to help combat fake news and reduce bias in information consumption. It has a chrome extension that uses APIs on a backend canister deployed on IC network which shows bias/accuracy info about all news articles online.
The chrome extension works across various social media and news sites and shows information about bias and accuracy of the article.
Inspiration
Disinformation — that is, content that intentionally misleads for political or financial gain — is nothing new. But as we’ve seen over the last year in particular, digital platforms have made it significantly easier to spread dangerous conspiracy theories
Decentralized aps offer a potential solution to combat the growing threat of digital disinformation.Blockchain systems use a decentralized, immutable ledger to record information in a way that’s constantly verified and re-verified by every party that uses it, making it nearly impossible to alter information after it’s been created.
Blockchain’s ability to provide decentralized validation and a clear chain of custody makes it potentially effective as a tool to track disinformation and biases in news.
Architechture
Tech Stack
- Backend canister and UI canister deployed on IC network
- API exposed on backened canister using JSON/HTTP mokoto contracts.
- Chrome extension that consumes API on IC and runs across all social media sites (twitter, facebook, google and reddit)
Challenges we ran into
- Learning Mokoto was challenging but it was equally rewarding deploying an app on the IC network
- Getting chrome extension work across multiple social media sites
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Building a functional chrome extension which works on a dfinity canister backend.
- Smart contracts for inserting, looking up and validating news sources
What we learned
- Learnt building apps on the Internet computer network
- Also learnt about various news APIs and
What's next for News Bias Check
- Adding Internet identity, tokenized rewards for users reporting fake news
- Import news from sources like Newscatcher API and classify them using data on the IC backend canister
References
- https://hbr.org/2021/07/how-blockchain-can-help-combat-disinformation -Pariser, E. (2017). The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. Pariser: https://medium.com/@10797952/the-causes-and-effects-of-filter-bubbles-and-how-to-break-free-df6c5cbf919f
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