Re: Updates for the Grop [via Credibility Community Group]

I'm so glad we heard from Sandro, who did so much great work.

And I would like to be a part of the conversation about how this group
could move forward. I agree with Sandro that it might be hard for a
consensus standards group to offer leadership. But we can create something
that is informed by the two documents we did create.

I saw the responses from Sara-Jayne, Leonard and Bob, and to me outside of
the points made in those notes, the nature of those notes makes it clear
why we need good leadership and a clear goal if this group is going to make
tangible progress.

Also... I took a quick glance at the membership, as it's been a while. I
noticed that a number of the people on this list are in new jobs now, and
so some maintenance is in order there.

So, Madilyn, I would like to learn anything that you'd be willing to share
about yourself, and perhaps more importantly what your plans are for
setting a goal for the group and then making sure that the right people are
in the group to achieve that goal.

Thanks!

-Scott Yates
Founder
JournalList.net, caretaker of the trust.txt framework
202-742-6842
Short Video Explanation of trust.txt <https://youtu.be/lunOBapQxpU>


On Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 10:29 PM Sara-Jayne Terp <sarajterp@gmail.com>
wrote:

> There's a deeper need here.  The practical work I've been doing recently
> has focussed on how to manage three interacting environments - the
> information space, specifically how to improve the boosting of informative
> signals (think covid, election, similar information) and find and reduce
> things like information voids (places where people seek information because
> of where they are, how they're named, phrases used etc); the risk space
> (misinformation narratives etc); and the response space.  Doing those three
> things well would be a lot easier with credibility standards we could apply
> consistently across the information space.
>
> My apologies for being quiet in here Sandro - I've been a little busy.
>
> Sj.
>
> On Mon, 19 Jul 2021, 4:42 am Sandro Hawke, <sandro@hawke.org> wrote:
>
>> I concur with your basic point, Bob, and to my eye it lines up with our
>> mission statement well enough that I'd venture we all agree. The tech
>> industry should do something about this problem, and do it in a way that
>> wont make things even worse.
>>
>> The question is how.  You say, let's get together and talk about it, at
>> least.  Well, we did.  Have you read carefully through the Credibility
>> Tech <https://www.w3.org/2018/10/credibility-tech/>and Reviewed
>> Credibility Signals <https://credweb.org/reviewed-signals/>?  And there
>> are lots of meeting notes and presentations at meetings, at all
>> credweb.org.  We made some progress, but not even enough to catch up
>> with the rate the problem is getting worse in the world at large, I fear..
>>
>> In my judgement, the most promising solutions are in credibility
>> networks, or reputation networks focused on credibility. That lets everyone
>> say everything, at the same time as each of us mostly only sees the good
>> stuff. But that work isn't nearly ready for standardization -- there isn't
>> even a single product that's proven it works let alone an industry that
>> needs to work together. I've spent most of the last year experimenting with
>> prototypes and I had encouraging results but nothing like a proven
>> solution. There are some companies out there (and in this group) like
>> repustar and creopoint which take their own promising but unproven
>> approaches to the problem. But, again, they're nowhere near ready for
>> interoperation or standardization.
>>
>> Like, *how* can the industry or this group work together to solve the
>> problem?  There are various places to meet and chat and collaborate --
>> technical and academic conferences, where some of those can happen. W3C is
>> useful when companies with viable products want to make them work together.
>> I don't see that here.  Sometimes it can go farther afield, but if there's
>> no clear plan, people are not likely to come along.
>>
>> On Leonard's point -- C2PA is an example of the kind of thing W3C could
>> help with, but Leonard has plenty of his own experience with standards and
>> they chose a somewhat different path. I expect it made more sense given the
>> exact details of their slice of the industry. I think it's great work, but
>> only a tiny piece of the puzzle. I'm most interested in how they identify
>> people and organizations; my advice has been to stay far from blockchains
>> on this and just use web pages (eg social media profile URLs).
>>
>>       -- Sandro
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/18/21 9:49 PM, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
>>
>> Bob -  well said…
>>
>>
>>
>> There are, however, a variety of efforts that are ongoing in other
>> places/forums about attempting to provide technology to address various
>> aspects of the larger issue(s) raised here.
>>
>>
>>
>> For example, I chair the Technical Working Group of the Coalition for
>> Content Provenance and Authenticity (http://c2pa.org) which is working
>> to deliver standards in the area of asset provenance.  The C2PA is doing
>> its work in conjunction with W3C’s Media and Entertainment WG and a
>> proposed PNG update (https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/png-2021.html),
>> the ISO’s JPEG Fake Media WG (https://jpeg.org/jpegfakemedia/), ETSI’s
>> ESI TC (https://www.etsi.org/committee/esi) and others.
>>
>>
>>
>> There is also work going on from Google and Chromium to bring WebAnnots
>> more natively in the browser that seem to align with some of your thoughts
>> - https://github.com/bokand/web-annotations.  I suspect that if that
>> work were to gain momentum, it could serve as part of the solution you
>> envision.
>>
>>
>>
>> And of course you have Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized ID work
>> here at W3C and elsewhere to address identity requirements that are
>> necessary to establish any form of trust.
>>
>>
>>
>> Leonard
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Bob Wyman <bob@wyman.us> <bob@wyman.us>
>> *Date: *Sunday, July 18, 2021 at 9:27 PM
>> *To: *Sandro Hawke <sandro@hawke.org> <sandro@hawke.org>
>> *Cc: *Credible Web CG <public-credibility@w3.org>
>> <public-credibility@w3.org>
>> *Subject: *Re: Updates for the Grop [via Credibility Community Group]
>>
>> Sandro,
>>
>> Thank you for the clarification. I found it somewhat ironic that an
>> announcement concerning leadership of the public-credibility group did not
>> appear to be credible...
>>
>>
>>
>> I also find it rather bizarre that there appears to be no focal point for
>> discussion within the technical community of problems rooted in technology
>> even though those issues inspire raging, and often ill-informed,
>> discussions outside the community. At this time, it appears that the most
>> commonly proposed "solutions" to the problem of credible online speech
>> focus on various ways to restrict either our right or our ability to speak.
>> It would be unfortunate if such solutions were to be imposed if there exist
>> reasonable, but unexplored, technical alternatives that could address
>> the problem. I suggest that our responsibility as a community extends
>> beyond not only creating and deploying technology but also to doing what we
>> can to ensure that others understand it and that technical solutions are
>> developed to mitigate or eliminate problems caused by what we have done.
>> Just as an engineer would feel responsible to address an unintended bug in
>> some software, I believe the technical community should feel responsible to
>> address, or at least understand, the unintended consequences of its work..
>> If the W3C is not the proper forum for such discussions, what is?
>>
>>
>>
>> Given an apparent absence of proposals for technical solutions to the
>> problem, I suggest that this group should initially focus on trying to
>> generate discussion of the problems, and the inadequacies of existing
>> proposals, in the hope that a deeper and more broadly shared understanding
>> might generate some useful ideas that could be explored in depth. Thus, I
>> would suggest that an attempt be made to reinvigorate the W3C Credible Web
>> Community Group Zoom meetings after over a year of inactivity. An hour or
>> two of Zoom meetings every month seems like a small investment that might
>> have significant impact. Along similar lines, I suggest that the Chair of
>> this group should put out a call for fresh proposals in an attempt to flush
>> out ideas that have not yet been fully explored or developed. Ideally, that
>> call would be made as broadly as possible. I would like to see a news story
>> entitled "Web Community seeks solutions to problems" rather than yet
>> another story detailing a proposal for how Facebook, Google, or whomever,
>> should improve their ability to decide what can and cannot be said in
>> public forums.
>>
>>
>>
>> My personal belief is that while Web Annotation has been discussed, it's
>> potential, when combined with Credibility Signals, has not been fully
>> recognized -- either as a means to address credibility or as a potential
>> source of entrepreneurial opportunity. As an individual user of the web, I
>> believe it should be a simple matter for me to publicly tag or annotate any
>> visible resource or fragment as either credible or not, as true or false,
>> etc. In essence, I suggest that *the solution to bad speech is more
>> speech*. Others may observe that such an ability would simply create a
>> cacophony of conflicting statements or claims. But, I am confident that
>> we'll be able to develop tools to extract signals from the noise. If
>> nothing else, such annotations might help those who operate formal fact
>> checking systems by identifying which resources are controversial at
>> any particular moment. Also, it should be recognized that when such
>> statements are made about me, or subjects close to me, Web Annotations
>> facilitate my exercising a "Right to Respond." Today, too much of what is
>> said is protected from response by being on sites or in formats that don't
>> permit comments or responses from those who have an interest in the truth
>> or credibility of statements that are made.
>>
>>
>>
>> It is my hope that either this group, or some other group more
>> appropriate, will reinvigorate a technical discussion of these issues. What
>> is going on in the world of politics and in the press does not appear to me
>> to be leading us in a good direction.
>>
>>
>>
>> bob wyman
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>