Re: Fact-checking and community notes on the Fediverse

On Thu, 23 Jan 2025, 05:19 Dr. Banjo Fox, <drbanjofox@protonmail.com> wrote:

> > "I am still thinking that we need to establish a system like the DNS
> system where a group of trusted servers can oversee the signatures of
> sub-servers that run sub-chains."
>
> This statement from Aaron reminds me of an identity system I concocted in
> the early design phases of Aardwolf-Social.  Thereihht be even a couple of
> napkins floating around somewhere.
>
Banjo,

What I was sorting of implying is that the DNS root servers are very secure
through design and operating procedures and by using a similar system where
everything is locked down by ritual procedures.
And that a system of similar trust could be created for maintaining a green
or low energy consumption persistent block chain. That can be based on
chained RSA signatures of SHA512's of blocks which I mentioned earlier in
this thread.

Aaron

> - Banjo
>
> ---
> "We will never know world peace until three people can simultaneously look
> each other straight in the eye." - Puscifer
>
> Sent from Proton Mail Android
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On 1/22/25 22:20, Lisa Rein wrote:
>
> +1 🤔
>
> On Jan 22, 2025, at 11:01 AM, Benjamin Goering <ben@bengo.co> wrote:
>
> 
> I find it confusing how the `defacto` CG
> <https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/defacto/> (mailing list cc'd) describes
> itself here <https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/defacto/> and on LinkedIn as
> `Decentralized Fact-checking & Provenance Working Group (DFCP)` and the
> chairs (who are also founders of fact.technology) list 'W3C' and that
> 'Working Group' on their LinkedIns in a way that 1) makes it look like they
> work for W3C and 2) makes it look like that community group is a W3C
> Working Group, when it's not and 3) the use of 'Working Group' could imply
> that CG is more legitimate than other CGs like https://credweb.org/
>
> Heads up, because at the very least it is confusing and, iirc, there may
> be some community guidelines about not representing a W3C CG as a WG, and
> not using the W3C logo in a way that is misleading.
>
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 5:46 AM Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Aaron,
>> All,
>>
>> Should these broader topics interest you, there is a new *Decentralized
>> Fact-checking & Provenance Organization (DeFacto) Community Group: *
>> https://www.w3.org/community/defacto/ . The Chair of the new Group is
>> interested in blockchain-based solutions [1].
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Adam
>>
>> [1] https://fact.technology/
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Aaron Gray <aaronngray@gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, January 20, 2025 12:39 AM
>> *To:* Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Emelia S. <emelia@brandedcode.com>; Evan Prodromou <
>> evan@prodromou.name>; public-swicg@w3c.org <public-swicg@w3c.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: Fact-checking and community notes on the Fediverse
>>
>>
>> Adam,
>>
>> I am seriously of the opinion in any complex domain it takes an expert to
>> make the real value judgements. Having said that detailed dissection of a
>> text or text from audio and analysis by some form of grounding may allow
>> analysis.
>>
>> But you have to remember everything is only a construct and even if all
>> the facts are correct,  we have to remember that even science does not have
>> facts, only theories that are checked against experiment. Given this,
>> therefore what we are actually dealing with hypothetical constructs to
>> burrow sciences way of analysing the world and applying that.
>>
>> This puts us in a situation where something might "have all the facts
>> correct" but may not be correct in itself, it's a construct, and it may
>> have been constructed to mislead or may be constructed by someone who is
>> not aligned with reality or suffers from the alignment problem, to burrow
>> from AI. Or they might quite simply not have all the facts.
>>
>> Now does the fact checker have all the facts, can we even check all the
>> facts, and who delineates the truth in the end. If we claim the ultimate
>> truth and we are not aligned with reality then we are only misleading.
>>
>> To reiterate, I am seriously of the opinion in any complex domain it
>> takes an expert. And if an expert system like science and scientists make
>> the wrong call, either because they are owned, it bought or influenced by
>> politics or circumstance, then the whole system maybe devalued by the
>> general public, who ever they are now
>>
>> I rest my case, this thing is really complicated and we need to tread
>> carefully tools can be misused and are a double edged sword.
>>
>> Sorry I did not answer your question but stepped back a bit into science
>> and the edge of philosophy, but I think we need to bear in mind the wider
>> context before and as we step forward.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Aaron
>>
>> On Mon, 20 Jan 2025, 02:15 Adam Sobieski, <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Aaron,
>>
>> Yes, the pandemic did trigger much interest in fact-checking. I don't
>> know whether interest is waning or not or, for that matter, in which
>> situations that end-users would choose to make use any of these features
>> that we're brainstorming and discussing.
>>
>> Beyond the pandemic and the related topics of the accuracy of information
>> during crises and emergencies, interesting use cases include assuring the
>> accuracy of public-sector speeches, debates, and meetings.
>>
>> Maybe, someday, there will be real-time fact-checking for orators'
>> debates? Maybe, someday, legislators or their staffers will be able to make
>> use of real-time fact-checking technologies using their smartphones?
>>
>> P2P-based approaches for annotations might answer some questions that
>> were presented (searching for annotations) while creating yet more
>> questions. For instance, with respect to fact-checking, I'm not yet sure
>> about what the UX would be when a fact or claim were contested, when there
>> were thousands of annotations supporting a fact or claim and thousands
>> opposing it simultaneously. This might display, instead of a green
>> checkmark or a red x, a yellow warning indicator. Mindful of the pandemic
>> and the points that you raised, what sorts of dashboards can be envisiond
>> for end-users to explore contested or disputed facts or claims?
>>
>> Meanwhile, the *Citation Needed* project [1] presents an entirely
>> different approach to fact-checking, one involving AI and Wikipedia. Which
>> kinds of responses should such a system provide to end-users, I wonder,
>> when it can find content both supporting and opposing facts or claims on
>> Wikipedia? This might segue from fact-checking to argumentation and to
>> hedging, listing alternatives (e.g., true, false) and providing support for
>> each alternative.
>>
>> Thank you. Any thoughts on these points?
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Adam
>>
>> [1]
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Future_Audiences/Experiment:Citation_Needed
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Aaron Gray <aaronngray@gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, January 19, 2025 6:57 PM
>> *To:* Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Emelia S. <emelia@brandedcode.com>; Evan Prodromou <
>> evan@prodromou.name>; public-swicg@w3c.org <public-swicg@w3c.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: Fact-checking and community notes on the Fediverse
>>
>> I think a lot of the issues we are dealing with need to be addressed with
>> at source and are educational, social, political, nutritional, and drug
>> related.
>>
>> Putting fact checking on things means :-
>>
>> a) your fact checking has to be correct, which often it's not.
>> b) it has to be objective and not oppionated.
>> c) it has to be well researched and well presented to _any_ audience.
>> d) it has to be read, understood, and accepted.
>>
>> All of these are subject to cognitive biases. Wikipedia gives a good long
>> list that all need to be considered :-
>>
>> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
>>
>> Quite frankly I think you are wasting your time most people don't read
>> the stuff and it's got a reputation for being incorrect whether it is or
>> not. So most of your target audience are either already educated and aware
>> anyway or are not and just ignore it anyway. Most people on social media
>> use emotions over intellect to judge things anyway and are subject to both
>> confirmation bias and an echo chambered existence.
>>
>> The problems with COVID-19 for example were :-
>> a) most people did not have sufficiently high enough levels of Vitamin D.
>> b) the authorities wanted us to stay in and not get enough sunlight and
>> fresh air
>> c) most people drink milk and animal fats. Lactic and animal fats
>> harbour Coronavirus.
>> d) most people in ICU's had either  comorbidities, were overweight, or
>> had genetic disposition with hACE2 receptors.
>> e) were black or Hispanic nurses pushed to the attack surface in ICU's in
>> hospitals on their feet for excessive periods dealing with COVID-19
>> patients with airborne SARS-CoV-2 virii in close conditions with
>> insufficient PPE.
>> f) the people we were trying to protect were the elderly, people with
>> comorbidities, people with immune conditions, or on immunosuppressants, or
>> had genetic predispositions like the black population with hACE2 alleles.
>> g) There are simple ways to help combat mRNA virii, like being young and
>> having lots of siRNA's in your cell cytoplasm, having sex often and having
>> lots of siRNA in your cellular cytoplasm, taking Vitamin C, D, Alpha Lipoic
>> Acid and Quercetin if you have COVID-19.
>>
>> Now fact check that for example, you would not have found out this
>> information without having run a COVID-19 group and/or read all the
>> scientific literature on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV2. BTW this list is actually
>> a lot lot longer but you get the idea. Now if you post that list you will
>> get fact checked incorrectly despite it all being well researched mainly
>> from PubMed accessible leading peer reviewed papers.
>>
>> This is what triggered all the fact checking in the first place.
>>
>> My 2 cents worth.
>>
>> Aaron
>>
>> On Tue, 14 Jan 2025, 23:32 Adam Sobieski, <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Social Web Incubator Community Group,
>>
>> Hello. I am pleased to share some preliminary brainstorming and ideas
>> about decentralized fact-checking and argumentation using P2P filesharing
>> networks.
>> Hopefully some of the following ideas can be of use for the Fediverse,
>> e.g., for the discovery of existing annotations.
>>
>> Introduction With respect to sharing Web Annotations, uses of P2P
>> networks have been previously explored (Segawa, 2006). Providing users with
>> access to these kinds of networks from their Web browsers, today, is
>> possible with WebRTC (Werner & Vogt, 2014; Ersson & Siri, 2015).
>> P2P filesharing networks could be of use for decentralized fact-checking
>> and argumentation. Facts or claims could be stored in entries, a special
>> kind of file resource.
>> By creating and sharing digitally-signed user feedback, notes, comments,
>> or annotations with respect to those facts or claims in entries, users
>> could express their determinations with respect to the veracity of facts or
>> claims and could also present arguments for or against them (Bex, Snaith,
>> Lawrence, & Reed, 2014).
>> Entries could contain one or more references to paraphrases of content
>> from locations on the Fediverse (see: Appendix A). Annotation objects from
>> the Fediverse could be indexed and redundantly stored on P2P filesharing
>> networks.
>> Uses of Embedding Vectors
>> Instead of, or in addition to, using cryptographic hashes to index and
>> address content on P2P networks, digitally-signed entries for facts or
>> claims could be indexed and addressed using embedding vectors (Zaarour &
>> Curry, 2022).
>> As considered, entries would be a special kind of file resource where
>> their embedding vectors, embedding vectors verifiably for selections of
>> other resources' contents, would be stored inside of them (see: Appendix A)
>> rather than obtained from processing them with AI models.
>> Indexing and addressing entries thusly would allow them to be merged or
>> wrapped, e.g., to add paraphrases, digitally signing them at each step,
>> without having to reindex them. Modifications, however, would result in
>> changes to entries' cryptographic hashes.
>> Deep learning can be used to detect and identify sentential paraphrases
>> (Zhou, Qiu, Liang, & Acuna, 2022). More elaborate uses of language models
>> could be utilized for inquiring and reasoning about whether sentences
>> occurring in contexts were paraphrases.
>> With respect to fact-checking on the Web, scenarios to consider include
>> both fact-checking content which was expressly indicated to be a fact or
>> claim by their authors, e.g., using custom elements, and fact-checking
>> arbitrary selections of documents' content.
>> Explorations with respect to fact-checking arbitrary selections of
>> content include the open-source Citation Needed project by the Future
>> Audiences team of the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> The Prompt API
>> Exploration is underway into providing APIs for accessing language models
>> in Web browsers; the Web Machine Learning Working Group is developing the
>> Prompt API.
>> With access to language models in Web browsers, users might be able to
>> obtain embedding vectors for portions of content in Web documents. These
>> embedding vectors could be used to search for other content, e.g.,
>> annotations, including on P2P networks.
>> Custom Elements HTML5 custom elements could allow facts or claims to be
>> expressed in documents, e.g., to add visual indictors near them or enable
>> special context menus for them, while specifying values for embedding
>> vectors computed for them using AI models (see: Appendix C). Appendices
>> Appendix A shows a markup sketch for an entry, a created entry wrapped to
>> add a paraphrase to it.
>> Appendix B shows that embedding vectors could be added to Magnet URIs and
>> Metalinks.
>> Appendix C shows that HTML5 custom elements could be used for asserted
>> facts or claims which refer to entries on P2P networks by means of one or
>> more embedding vectors.
>> Appendix D shows an approach involving shortcodes for authors using
>> content-management systems to be able to easily add facts or claims to
>> their content.
>> Bibliography
>> Bex, Floris, Mark Snaith, John Lawrence, and Chris Reed. "ArguBlogging:
>> An application for the argument web." *Journal of Web Semantics* 25
>> (2014): 9-15.
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826814000079
>> Ersson, Kerstin, and Persson Siri. "Peer-to-peer distribution of web
>> content using WebRTC within a web browser." (2015).
>> https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:819420/FULLTEXT01.pdf
>> Segawa, Osamu. "Web annotation sharing using P2P." In *Proceedings of
>> the 15th international conference on World Wide Web*, pp. 851-852. 2006.
>> http://ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www2006/devel-www2006.ecs.soton.ac.uk/programme/files/pdf/p45.pdf
>> Werner, Max Jonas, and Christian Vogt. "Implementation of a browser-based
>> P2P network using WebRTC." *Hamburg* (2014).
>> https://inet.haw-hamburg.de/teaching/ws-2013-14/master-project/Prj1-report-werner-vogt.pdf
>> Zaarour, Tarek, and Edward Curry. "SemanticPeer: A distributional
>> semantic peer-to-peer lookup protocol for large content spaces at
>> internet-scale." *Future Generation Computer Systems* 132 (2022):
>> 239-253.
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167739X22000590
>> Zhou, Chao, Cheng Qiu, Lizhen Liang, and Daniel E. Acuna. "Paraphrase
>> identification with deep learning: A review of datasets and methods." *arXiv
>> preprint arXiv:2212.06933* (2022). https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.06933
>>
>>
>> Appendix A: Sketch of an Entry for a Fact or Claim
>>
>> <action kind="add-paraphrase">
>>
>>   <base>
>>
>>     <action kind="create">
>>
>>       <base />
>>
>>       <time>2024-01-14T00:01:00Z</time>
>>
>>       <v id="v-1" model=" urn:ai:model:llama:3.2:90B">...</v>
>>
>>       <metalink id="source-1">
>>
>>         <file name="article1.html">
>>
>>           <url>https://www.example1.com/user1/article1.html</url>
>>
>>         </file>
>>
>>       </metalink>
>>
>>       <selection source="source-1">
>>
>>         ... <select v="v-1">A sentence.</select> ...
>>
>>       </selection>
>>
>>       <signature>...</signature>
>>
>>     </action>
>>
>>   </base>
>>
>>   <time>2024-01-14T00:00:00Z</time>
>>
>>   <v id="v-2" model="urn:ai:model:llama:3.3:70B">...</v>
>>
>>   <metalink id="source-2">
>>
>>     <file name="article2.html">
>>
>>       <url>https://www.example2.com/user2/article2.html</url>
>>
>>     </file>
>>
>>   </metalink>
>>
>>   <selection source="source-2">
>>
>>     ... <select v="v-1 v-2">A paraphrase.</select> ...
>>
>>   </selection>
>>
>>   <signature>...</signature>
>>
>> </action>
>>
>>
>> Appendix B: Adding Embedding Vectors to Magnet URIs and Metalinks Embedding
>> vectors could be added to Magnet URIs by means of adding a key: xv.
>> Embedding vectors could be new components of metalinks.
>> <metalink xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:metalink">
>>   <published>2009-05-15T12:23:23Z</published>
>>   <file name="example.txt">
>>     <url>http://www.example.com/example.txt</url>
>>     <vector model="urn:ai:model:llama:3.3:70B">...</vector>
>>   </file>
>> </metalink>
>>
>> Appendix C: Custom Elements for Facts or Claims A custom element could
>> be used to signify an asserted fact or claim, referring to an entry on a
>> P2P network by means of embedding vectors alongside other information. Via
>> a JavaScript library, and perhaps WebRTC, clients could participate in P2P
>> networks and retrieve entries, feedback on entries, or both.
>> Notice that, for the special file type of entries, those embedding
>> vectors within them and not of the XML file itself are utilized with
>> respect to storing and addressing the resource on P2P networks.
>> <verifiable-claim see="magnet:?xv=...">Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
>> nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
>> consequat.</verifiable-claim>
>> Appendix D: Content Authoring with Shortcodes How might authors easily
>> add facts or claims to their content? With respect to popular
>> content-management systems, the syntax for so doing could resemble that of
>> existing shortcodes like [quote].
>> [claim]Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris
>> nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.[/claim]
>> During content-publishing processes, authors' content-management systems
>> (e.g., Drupal, WordPress) – or configurable plugins or extensions for these
>> systems – could handle searching for existing paraphrases, adding new facts
>> or claims (if needed) to P2P filesharing networks, obtaining the data for
>> use in the see attributes, caching these data, and generating markup.
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Emelia S. <emelia@brandedcode.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, January 13, 2025 11:21 AM
>> *To:* Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name>
>> *Cc:* public-swicg@w3c.org <public-swicg@w3c.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: Fact-checking and community notes on the Fediverse
>>
>> This is already something on the list of things that the ActivityPub
>> Trust  & Safety Taskforce is working on:
>>
>> [image: 4.png]
>> <https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-trust-and-safety/issues/4>
>>
>> Idea: Annotations / Labeling of content · Issue #4 ·
>> swicg/activitypub-trust-and-safety
>> <https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-trust-and-safety/issues/4>
>> github.com
>> <https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-trust-and-safety/issues/4>
>>
>> The Web Annotations model could work, but the discovery of annotations
>> that exist is the hardest part, I've started solving that in
>> https://github.com/ThisIsMissEm/annotations-service where I use the
>> sha256 hash of the Object ID as the annotation collection ID, giving a very
>> simple way to fetch all annotations for a given object.
>>
>> I do want to investigate what an Annotate activity would look like, but I
>> suspect this would just be an announcement of sorts "hey, there's this web
>> annotation over here for this target"
>>
>> Yours,
>> Emelia
>>
>> On 13 Jan 2025, at 04:23, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:
>>
>> We don't have an easy way for remote actors to annotate content on the
>> Fediverse.
>>
>> The biggest use case for this is to have permissionless fact-checking or
>> community notes. A fact-checking service could annotate a remote content
>> object like a Note or a Video with additional fact-checking information,
>> and compliant clients or servers could show the fact-checking information
>> when showing the Note.
>>
>> I think there are some tricky parts to this structure, which I believe
>> suggests that we should start working on it.
>>
>> Evan
>>
>>
>>
>>