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back to article MIT boffin's 'truth goggles' probe print and pols

A student at MIT’s Media Lab is developing a browser plug-in that can check the accuracy of information posted online, and may use it to monitor political speeches for untruths. For his master’s thesis, Dan Schultz – who was recently named a 2011 Knight-Mozilla Fellow – came up with the idea for “truth goggles” while talking …

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  1. zen1

    not to sound cynical but...

    what's the life expectancy on the hardware that this stuff runs on? My guess the first time it's placed under load, just at the national level, it will probably implode.

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  2. Tomato42
    Thumb Up

    That's brilliant! If anything we need more scepticism.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      I don't believe you.

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    2. Armando 123
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Yeah, you would say that ...

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  3. Stevie

    Huzzah!

    For once a technological advance that actually does something useful.

    I wish it were a fact now.

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  4. John A Blackley

    Not needeed

    There is no need for 'truth goggles' for televised political ads. Every word in them is a lie.

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    1. Armando 123
      Reply Icon

      Not every one. Why, even Ted Kennedy once used the word "the" correctly.

      More or less.

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  5. Bucky 2
    Big Brother

    I'll look forward to seeing it work.

    Obviously, one direction leading to catastrophic failure would be a simple statistical analysis of how often something is purported to be true (think about how often a lie is repeated, even though it appears as "false" but once on snopes.com).

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  6. John F***ing Stepp

    My gosh! The Anti-Beer Goggle has appeared!

    The end is nigh upon us!

    (trying to use up the worlds supply of ! )

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This sounds like it should just be a modern implementation of "peril sensitive sunglasses." If it's working correctly, it should just mark everything ever written as a lie. Cause it all is. Nothing is completely true; lies of omission are always a popular tactic.

    And I don't think making "it as easy as possible to find corroborating facts" is the best way to go about this. You can always find some nutjob "scientist" that has provided "facts" to corroborate your pet theory. It sounds like it would just worsen the trust issues with media that we already have. Now we'd have a computer program that says point x is backed up by "facts" from Fox News and point y is backed up by "facts" from the Huffington Post. We'd just have more impetus to limit our "fact" gathering to those sources that reinforce what we already believe.

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  8. Mike 140
    Flame

    I hope that ...

    ... there's an industrial strength version for use on comments sections.

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  9. Darryl
    Holmes

    So I'm assuming it won't be checking the facts by Wikipedia-ing them

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  10. Robert Heffernan
    Flame

    Wikipedia

    Wikipedia alone will give it a melt-down from inaccuracies!

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  11. FozzyBear

    Why do we need them

    If you operate on the assumption that every political and news story is a lie or at best a half truth. The real shocker nowadays is if the politician or news feed actually gets it right, but those odds are running in the same ball park as winning the lottery

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  12. Herbert Meyer
    Happy

    Thats too easy

    They are all LYING ! Every word is a lie, evasion, or misdirection.

    Thank you, I feel much better now. Time for my medication, NURSE ! NURSE !

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  13. P. Lee
    Happy

    It isn't that we need it (we know they are all lying)

    but I want it hooked into the beeb's fx facility to elongate the nose of anyone on camera who is lying.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I want the truth!"

    "You can't handle the truth!"

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  15. Anonymous Coward 15
    Joke

    So you go to, say, cakewrecks.com

    and the plugin says "It's a lie"?

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