The Factual’s media literacy scholarship was open worldwide between March-May 2020. Over 100 entries were received in the high school category. The essay prompt was: ““In the digital age, access to information has broken down countless barriers. However, it has also provided the platform for disinformation to spread, leaving it up to the audience to …
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“A Well-Informed Citizenry” by Dwayne Miller Jr.: Media Literacy Scholarship Honorable Mention
The Factual’s media literacy scholarship was open worldwide between March-May 2020. Over 100 entries were received in the high school category. The essay prompt was: ““In the digital age, access to information has broken down countless barriers. However, it has also provided the platform for disinformation to spread, leaving it up to the audience to …
Coronavirus News Tracker
With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting every aspect of our lives, we are all searching for the most up-to-date and credible news for clarity. That’s why, at The Factual, we’ve put together a COVID-19 news timeline that uses an algorithm to curate the most credible article, by the hour, from hundreds of reputable news sources.
Who Has the Most Credible News on Coronavirus?
Misinformation about the outbreak of Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has arguably spread as fast as the disease itself. From myths like garlic’s ability to stave off the illness to the virus being a purpose-built bioweapon, information runs the gamut from harmless to endangering. At large, the wrong information can cause panic and even undermine epidemiological efforts …
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How Credible Is Coverage of Democratic Candidates From Right-leaning Sites?
There are no two ways to say this: articles from outlets with a Right-leaning political orientation tend to have less credible coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. But before you conclude that this proves a liberal bias in The Factual’s credibility algorithm, it is worth looking at our data in greater detail. The story, …
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The Credibility of News Articles Plummeted Before and During the Iowa Caucus
The Iowa Caucus was a huge mess for a number of reasons, one of which may be that the credibility of news coverage of the Democratic candidates had a significant drop in the days before and during the caucus. While it’s unclear what impact this may have had on results in Iowa, it suggests that …
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A solution for algorithmic transparency, as outlined to the US Senate
In June 2019 Stephen Wolfram, a pioneer in computer science research, was asked to testify to the US Senate Commerce Committee about one of the more pressing problems of our time: how internet platforms persuade us to spend too much time on them. His testimony was measured and thoughtful, as befits the youngest MacArthur grant …
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What if most news is not that important?
More than half of all Americans get a portion of our news from social media but most of us are frustrated by the experience. Rampant bias and even downright false stories are part of the problem but increasingly people are becoming aware that the news they see in their feed is selected primarily because it …
OwlFactor launches Trusted News Service to combat biased and fake news
We are all sick of biased news, click-bait headlines, and fake news.
Apple News subscription is fatally flawed but not because of the revenue share
On February 12, rumors leaked of a subscription coming soon from Apple News. The details are being refined but the concept seems to be $10/mth to access all news content across dozens of paywalled sites.