Skeptive.com has client seeing red

[NJ]

Smacks of cloaking of the sort that Google should like to hear about.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...amreport?pli=1 I found this link to report this type of thing. It would be interesting to hear what has happened when people have reported a site. I can see sites like StoresOnline, Skeptive and Ripp-off-report actually using this tool against others who point out their problems.

[monstercoder]

https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...amreport?pli=1 I found this link to report this type of thing. It would be interesting to hear what has happened when people have reported a site. I can see sites like StoresOnline, Skeptive and Ripp-off-report actually using this tool against others who point out their problems.

Handy link. I'm going to bookmark that. Thanks. Any bad web sites I see in the index, now we can all rat them out.

[matgerke]

I'm the CEO of Skeptive, and I just wanted to clear up the confusion. We're not out to scam anybody, and we're not going to ask anyone for money.

Skeptive is an Internet tool that determines the factual accuracy of Internet content. Skeptive's browser plugin does for factual accuracy what spell-check does for spelling -- if any given sentence on the internet is false, the Skeptive plugin underlines it in red. Truth and falsehood are determined in a unique way -- a given sentence is determined to be "false" if it is contradicted by more trustworthy sources. So, if a blog says that, say, Barack Obama is a Muslim, but reputable news agencies agree that he is a Christian, then the Skeptive plugin will flag the sentence "Barack Obama is a Muslim", wherever it occurs on the internet. Skeptive's technology has important implications for the future of the internet -- and particularly journalism -- which will be tremendously impacted by the advent of technology that flags errors and falsehoods. We believe we are on the cusp of a major change in the internet.

So, the "disputes" that you are seeing on the site are factual disputes -- like whether Barack Obama is a Muslim. If there are no disputes listed, then your website hasn't yet been implicated in any factual disputes. This should all be clear if you check out the site.

[deepsand]

Being "authoritative" and "factually correct" are not necessarily well correlated.

Any conclusions that rely on such assumption are no more than an instance of argumentum ad verecundiam, the fallacy of argument from/appeal to authority.

[weegillis]

This is the second case of reverse SEO to appear in these forums in as many weeks. Damage control or just another layer of subterfuge? Notice that last line? ...'check out the site.'

[deepsand]

Perhaps both. Or, the naive belief that a non-sentient entity can well distinguish between fact and fiction.

[NJ]

It's a very interesting concept to have software determine whether something is a "lie." My ex-husband used to say, "You are only doing that to make me mad." Well, it was true that he was mad. This could be verified by tone of voice and body language. I'm sure that blood pressure tests could be done to prove it too. Now, it's a little harder to prove my own motives. His statement was an assumption that my only motive was to make him mad, that I could not possibly have any further thought or reason. OK, take that to reporters and bloggers and ... What is the truth? What if a reporter uses the truth to create a false image - or are reporters machines? What if a reporter is careless - or are reporters machines? What if editors do either of those - or are editors machines? Funny thing, I think that Republicans say that Democrats are liars and Democrats say that Republican are liars. How is software going to deal with that - unless the programmers have a bias

It seems to me that Skeptive is rather a "validated" opinion comparison!

[deepsand]

It seems to me that Skeptive is rather a "validated" opinion comparison!

That's really all it is.

At present, the majority of Clergy concur that the Earth is the center of the Universe about which all else revolves; ergo, it is so.

[NJ]

That's really all it is.

At present, the majority of Clergy concur that the Earth is the center of the Universe about which all else revolves; ergo, it is so.

And it would be best to put Galileo Galilei to the inquisition! Ahhh, but which inquisition?

x = x + 1 doesn't work in Algebra, but does work in programming. Bwahahaha, now I have the mathematicians and the programmers deciding what is fact!

[deepsand]

Or, in this case, some fuzzy logicians.