A new way to verify the news: How we're partnering with Journalists to fight misinformation

Build with journalists, trust incentivizing media pilot.

Journalism faces a crisis of trust. The volume of manipulated media, astro-turfing, IP loss, and deepfakes are eroding public trust as well as breaking revenue models for independent journalism. Together with Dutch-EU journalists we are developing a pilot for verifying the authenticity of news.

Timepath.co and AdaMoments.io have submitted a proposal to Cardano’s project Catalyst (a decentralized crowdfunding platform) for a trusted media pilot with Dutch journalists. Timepath.co has delivered over 1 billion views for outlets like RTL News and DPG Media through interactive timelines and live blogs. Combined with AdaMoments.io, a Cardano-based decentralized social media platform, we are applying distributed technology to media needs. Through a process of educational and input workshops, development sprints and end -user testing we are educating journalists in the technology needed for impactful and trusted storytelling in the age of AI. 

In 90’s when the internet was in full evolution, some newspapers wrote it was “just a passing fad” others adapted to the new online audiences and outperformed their competition. Today we are in a similar competitive environment where online audiences are looking for both more immersive storytelling experiences but also new methods to identify the trustworthiness of news media.

As global courts are wrestling with the IP implications of AI, the easily copied tones of voice and writing styles, the hyper-realistic image and video generation that is fuzzing the boundary between real and fake.

Max van Rossem (AmsterdamNode) and Frido van Driem (Timepath) are bringing together the open source community and dutch journalists to tackle the spread of fake media head-on.

Stories such as Annet de Graaf’s, a viral video that resulted in metadata being faked and videos being manipulated for (geo)political objectives, bring a sobering reality to light: the fast-paced spread of misinformation on a global scale. “Democracy is only as good as the voting population, and people just don’t know who or what to trust anymore. Whispering Media is an independent journalistic community based out of Amsterdam, and we are finished with complaining about misinformation, it's time to bring the truth to the masses ourselves!” – Annet de Graaf

We are hopeful of support from the Cardano community for this important initiative that will collaborate closely with technological projects such as the VDIC-Cardano to bring trust-less technology (technology that does not require trust in a third party) into the hands of Journalists and their readers.

If you are a journalist in the BeNeLux area or an open-source developer with experience in distributed technology and Digital Identities, do follow along for the announcement of the coming workshops.

Read more about our proposal here: https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/14/cardano-use-cases-partners-and-products/build-with-journalists-trust-incentivizing-media-pilot