Factland DAO co-founder Evan Hansen tells The Agenda podcast that decentralization can help cut through media bias when fact-checking information.
What is the “truth,” and what is a “fact”? While the question may seem silly and the answer obvious, the fact of the matter (pun intended) is that what is considered accurate or truthful can vary wildly from person to person. Much of the world lives in increasingly divided and fragmented societies where two people may not agree on much of anything at all, including what is fake news and what is real news. Add social media to the mix, and the idea of there being any one universal source of truth becomes even less believable.
Historically, fact-checkers have been seen as unbiased mediators to get to the bottom of what is fact and what is fiction. Websites like Snopes attempt to break down the truth behind current events, and newsrooms employ staff whose job is to ensure their stories are straight. But even fact-checkers themselves — and the organizations they work for — hold biases that may influence their process or help determine which issues they investigate and which they decide to leave alone.
On Episode 28 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond spoke with Evan Hansen, co-founder and CEO of Factland DAO, about how blockchain technology can be an unsuspecting force multiplier and equalizer for the fact-checking process. Hansen is a media veteran who took his frustrations with the state of misinformation and turned to Web3 to launch the decentralized autonomous organization.
