Complaints of bias and faulty “algorithms” have driven some from social networks. Every day someone suggests we log off Facebook or Twitter in protest of someone getting the boot, or not. Youtube, Reddit and Instagram all use their own rules to dictate who stays and who goes. To outside users, it all looks and feels very arbitrary.
A group of journalists and media execs are trying to combat user fears. They want to give readers confidence in what they read again. AI is clearly not getting the job done. Steve Brill, a co-founder of Newsguard, thinks his browser extension will help. He believes Newsguard is the logical, free-market American way to solve the issue.
But how does it work? You, the user, add the browser extension to Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. The extension will give you ratings of different sites you visit. It ranks news outlets and search engine result pages. Sites are rated as either green (good) or red (not good). If you click the indicator you'll get a detailed breakdown of the score. The ratings come from actual people, not computers or algorithms. They look at reporting practices, whether sites post articles proven to be false, and more.
According to Brill, their goal is to be “the opposite of an algorithm.” They don’t want to censor content, and they make a point to not have a political bias. Based on their scoring rubric Fox News gets a green light, but so does the New York Times. As an added perk, Newsguard contacts outlets for corrections or comments on ratings. - No algorithm does that.
As of publication, the Lexington County Chronicle had not been evaluated. The extension is still working through a backlog of news outlets.