Elon Musk Wants To Create a Credibility Meter for Journalists & Apparently, Twitter Is On-Board

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.

It’s undeniable that Elon Musk is an innovative idea generator. From rebranding flamethrowers into non-flamethrowers at The Boring Company to his latest galactic crusades with Space X, Musk has a repertoire of pitching and executing business models. Recently, Musk has used his social media platform to pitch a website dedicated to rating journalists and publications—and according to his poll, the Twitterverse is plugged into his idea.

On Wednesday, Musk tweeted, “Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda …” Although Musk’s website might seem reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s incessant “fake news” mantra, Musk claims that it isn’t.

After being accused of paralleling Trump’s anti-any-media-other-than-Fox-News stance, Musk defended Pravda. “Thought you’d say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks ‘You’re just like Trump!’ Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more. You lost your credibility a long time ago.”

Granted, there are a plethora of reasons that likely contributed to Trump’s presidency (such as the fact that there are somehow still a ton of white people that wrongfully call the police on people of color for existing or napping, who simultaneously sympathize with Trump’s racist tendencies and his fellowracist allies). Based on Musk’s Twitter poll, a lot of people might not trust the media, or at least the majority of his followers who participated in the survey don’t trust the media.

In his poll, approximately 88 percent of the 670,000+ participants agree that Musk should ignite a “media credibility rate site.”

Nevertheless, it appears that Musk may have generalized the media into a singular representative group when he wrote “no one believes you” and “you lost your credibility.” Although the publications represented in the media are as diverse as the public who consumes their lists, articles, videos and podcast, it can be worrisome that Musk allegedly lumped every member of the media into a singular agglomeration with his use of “you.”

Conversely, Musk could be using the “you” in his tweets to reference the Twitter user who initially criticized his stance on the media (seeing as the critic, Andrew J. Hawkins, is a reporter). So, it’s totally possible that Musk could be @-ing trustworthiness and subsequently the public’s opinion of his credibility.

At times, it can be difficult to decipher whether Musk’s specific tweets are satirical or serious, seeing as, according to The Verge, the billionaire has collaborated with former The Onion writers to curate some humorous content. However, Pravda seems, at least, to be a serious business venture.

In a document filed with the Secretary of State in California, it appears that Musk and his business partners secured the rights to Pravda Corp. back in Oct. 2017.

The inspiration behind Musk’s credibility-metering business pursuit is still unknown. However, some Twitter users speculate that certain publications that have been critical of Musk and his business practices might have sparked this professional move. According to The New York Times, Musk could have been influenced to conceptualize Pravda because of recent reports on Tesla news.

While it’s unclear if media scrutiny about Tesla or Musk propagated Pravda Corp., it's obvious that Musk is hypervigilant when members of the media namedrop him in an article. “Amazingly, the ‘media is awesome’ vote is declining, despite hundreds of articles attacking this very poll,” Musk tweets.

Decoding what media source(s) Musk is referencing is an improbable task (unless he DMs us, obviously), but dozens of publications from USA Today to CNBC have covered Musk’s Pravda-induced thread. While some media sources have reported the story from a news angle, others have dissected from a defensive angle and used Musk’s tweets as a talking point to defend journalism ethics, and other media outlets have used this story to formulate op-eds.

Beyond the subtle fact that the ongoing Musk-Pravda coverage shows the breadth of how members of the media cover news pieces (as well as the varying verticals that newsworthy articles can fall under), including criticism or commentary in an article, doesn’t necessarily equate to an attack. Journalists can cover stories from a multitude of angles and cite various sources—but angles, sources and the like can, at times, be divisive (depending on the context, among other criteria).

Nonetheless, it’s important to note that “the media” can be critical of Musk’s impending new company without attacking the idea. After all, one of the pillars of journalistic integrity is the duty to analytically cover a story, without bypassing any potential faults regarding the subject(s) of the headline. Still, there could be a possible issue with this whole plan — particularly the fact that proposed business model is centered on the public.

Although the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics helps keep facts factual and journalists journalistic, there are already organizations that enforce these code of ethics and rate the truth in claims made by public figures and the media.

For example, PolitiFact is a site dedicated to fact-checking specific articles and statements within reported pieces. Likewise, Snopes also keeps journalistic falsehoods at bay. A new public-sourced site could aid PolitiFact, Snopes, and related organizations in their mission to keep journalism ethical. Unlike Snopes and PolitiFact, which are both staffed by fact-checking experts, Pravda could give the power to rate journalists, reporters, editors and publications to the public.

While this could give readers the ability to rate journalists, guide the content that they digest, and ultimately push journalistic writing to improve (which shouldn’t be construed as intrinsically malicious), the public is also susceptible to their own bias (as Stephen Colbert pointed out so many years ago in his segment on "truthiness"— the public often clings to things that feel true more than the things that are true.)  The misinformation-fighting vigilantes at Snopes and PolitiFact are professionally trained to combat legitimate fictitious news; however, the public is well equipped to decipher between an op-ed and reported news—just like readers are able to detect opinionated commentary within an article versus indisputable facts.

Leaving the power to rate open to the public to determine which news gathers are credible and trustworthy could also give site-goers the opportunity to sway the definition of credibility and factual information—because the public is still susceptible to its own bias. Granted, the public can dissociate from their bias to generate reliable ratings on Pravda (just like the public is able to discern between fact and fiction). Yet, if credibility ratings are left to the public, they'd have the potential to use their natural bias for nefarious purposes—like acknowledging their opinions and using them to generate negative reviews of specific journalists and particular articles.

Regardless, Musk believes that his idea could be beneficial to journalists. “Even if some of the public doesn’t care about the credibility score, the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves,” Musk tweets.

Though journalists could unabashedly add their Pravda scores to their resumes, the success of a model like this ultimately depends on the public and their trustworthiness.