Experiment shows groups of laypeople reliably rate stories as effectively as fact-checkers do

[Jim__]

Note: a key piece of information to take-away is that these are politically-balanced groups of about 10 to 20 people (in one place the article says 10 to 15 people in another it says 12 to 20 people).

From phys.org:

In the face of grave concerns about misinformation, social media networks and news organizations often employ fact-checkers to sort the real from the false. But fact-checkers can only assess a small portion of the stories floating around online.

A new study by MIT researchers suggests an alternate approach: Crowdsourced accuracy judgements from groups of normal readers can be virtually as effective as the work of professional fact-checkers.

"One problem with fact-checking is that there is just way too much content for professional fact-checkers to be able to cover, especially within a reasonable time frame," says Jennifer Allen, a Ph.D. student at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of a newly published paper detailing the study.

But the current study, examining over 200 news stories that Facebook's algorithms had flagged for further scrutiny, may have found a way to address that problem, by using relatively small, politically balanced groups of lay readers to evaluate the headlines and lead sentences of news stories.

more ...

[intrepidity]

1. I mean, Wikipedia does it, right? nt

[fwvinson]

2. They can hire me. But, I ain't cheap.