How TrueNews can help sort “fact”​ from “fake”​

First, let me say, I am not picking on Axios for their reporting in this blog entry, and indeed, hope to work with them in the future as a contributor to TrueNews. The following serves to show the need and the value of TrueNews.global.

A story was published by the Axios newsgroup on Friday 3/18, claiming that the Ukraine:

Scoop: Ukraine sought long-term resistance funding

“Ukraine’s top national security official asked earlier this month for the U.S. to go beyond traditional military aid and provide the country with the funding, training and weaponry to support a long-term resistance movement”

And further saying that “to go beyond traditional military aid and provide the country with the funding, training and weaponry to support a long-term resistance movement.”

But, according to CNN:

Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova later told Axios that she believed the letter was “falsified.” And, according to the CNN article, And officials at the National Security Council also told Axios they have no record of receiving such a letter from Danilov.

They have updated the story with this (at the beginning of the story): “Editor’s note: This corrects an original version of this story that stated the Ukrainian government “asked” for additional assistance from the U.S. government, when Axios was unable to confirm the letter was actually sent.”

Ukraine’s ambassador disputes letter asking U.S. for resistance support.

This serves as a great example of how TrueNews can help avoid, or at least make situations like this more immediately visible.

The letter was originally reported to have been sent.

So, how would TrueNews have helped with this situation, to bring visibility to the credulity of the evidence, facts, etc.?

First, remember that we don’t edit the news items that get published, moderators make sure that they meet the requirements of the platform:

  • Evidence is unique on the platform and created/found by the author (or by a
  • Facts having at least one piece of Evidence attached
  • Stories have at least one Fact and one piece of associated Evidence referenced

Then, other News Item Contributors can add Evidence (supporting or not) to existing Facts. Like in this case, the White House (really the National Security Council) could have created evidence (say a quote from a high-level official using their real name and title) saying that the letter was not received, and connected it to the Fact

Initial news items created by the original author:

  • Evidence:
  • The letter would be created as a piece of evidence, capturing the image of the letter, where/how/when/from whom the letter was captured
  • The source, who sent the letter, would ‘corroborate’ that the evidence is real and they composed/knew about it
  • Corroboration is when another user (not the contributor creating the Evidence) certifies (electronically signs a document) stating that they either were present at the time when the evidence was found/create/uncovered/happened, etc. (i.e. when a document was found in a library, a piece of physical evidence dug up at a crime scene, an email that was sent, a phone call that was made or received, an interview that occurred)
  • Fact
  • True Statement: “Ukraine send letter to US on March 18, 2022, asking for long-term resistance funding”
  • We put better structure on the Fact statement, rather than the original “Ukraine sought long-term resistance funding”
  • False statement: “Ukraine did not send letter to US on March 18, 2022, asking for long-term resistance funding”
  • Attached Evidence from above
  • Story
  • Referencing the Fact, and associated Evidence

News viewers could vote on the Evidence (opinion on whether it’s real/fake), Fact (opinion on whether the True or False statement is correct), and Story (like/neutral/dislike), they could reward the authors of any of those news items, comment on them, favorite the news items (and therefore be notified when they get updated), or share them on their Social media.

So technically, this same info would have gone out, similar to how it happened in this situation.

But then:

  • Evidence
  • News Item Contributor (National Security Council, asked by the White House, creates a quote from a senior official, stating that the letter was not received by the US government

and attaches it to the existing Fact created originally as a ‘disputing’ type of Evidence (supporting the ‘false’ statement of the Fact)

  • News Viewers who had the topic or any of the other metadata) would be notified of the new evidence, and could come back and vote/change their vote, and do the other normal things that News Viewers can do (including automatically republish the Fact to their social media account if they set it up that way
  • News Item Contributor (Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova) creates a quote from herself, stating that the letter was ‘falsified’

and attaches it to the existing Fact created originally as a ‘disputing’ type of Evidence (supporting the ‘false’ statement of the Fact)

There are a LOT of other pieces of Evidence and Facts that could and should come out of this situation but the above makes the point.

With TrueNews.global, we have all the facts and evidence in one place, evolving over time, and allow people to see and adjust their view (and their voice on other platforms) according to how the story evolves. Other news item contributors can use those same Facts and Evidence for their own Stories as well, which would bring better visibility to the true facts of the situation.

Kirk Sullivan

Kirk Sullivan

Founder