As you browse the web, a browser plugin would read your
article.
It runs these words through an algorithm that assess the
article for logical fallacies, as well as the persuasive
tactics used in the article.
The user is automatically alerted to these dodgy wording
via underlines for certain
weasel words, or for obviously
incorrect numbers or statistics (right clicking will show a
"Does the author actually mean this? Collateral Damage -
->
Civilians Killed" message).
In addition it provides a summerization function to more
easily extract key ideas from the article, and remove all
the extra fluff (usually for trying to persuade or mislead
the reader). E.g. an entire article that sounds like its for
something is found to actually mean something else by
the
summerization function.
In theory a scientific will have minimum alerts, while a
typical tabloid article will throw up massive amount of
alerts.
This eventually perfected, will act as a stupid filter for
consumers to see pass useless informations from 'news'
orgs like fox news, as well as politicians. And hopefully
allows the common citizen to vote smartly.
Because surely while we are getting more information...
the SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) of the news we are
getting is probably getting
smaller. Its not the people that is getting dumber, its
our
information diet! (especially if the easy source of
information is controlled by too few individuals with
malicious intent)