Two disinformation experts have launched a DIY news outlet
The typical online experience is not particularly pleasant nowadays.
Artificial intelligence slop — from Shrimp Jesus to dogs with Coke cans for feet — is flooding our feeds, along with deepfake scams featuring our favorite celebrities, dehumanizing falsehoods about immigrants and spam of all stripes.
Fact-checkers have been demonized, academics studying misinformation are intimidated and defunded and journalists have been crowded out by “new media” in the White House press pool. Social media platforms, and their Community Notes experiments, have cast users out on their own in a hostile digital world.
Indicator, a digital outlet founded by fact-checking and digital investigation veterans Alexios Mantzarlis and Craig Silverman, aims to demystify the moment — and help readers investigate the things they see online themselves. The free weekly newsletter is hosted on Beehiiv (as opposed to Substack, from which Mantzarlis pulled his previous newsletter), and will include a monthly training workshop for paid users.
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.