'Dispute Finder' web tool gives two sides of a story

[Gawdzilla Sama]

'Dispute Finder' web tool gives two sides of a story
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* 12:25 19 June 2009 by Colin Barras, Mountain View, California

Showing that there are two sides to every story has never been easier, thanks to a new web tool that highlights disputed text on a web page and offers links to other sites with a different perspective.

"For subjects like science there's lots of misinformation around," says Rob Ennals at Intel Research in Berkeley. But it's not always obvious to the web user which statements they read online are accepted by all sides and which are contentious. "That's what our new Dispute Finder is for," Ennals says. "We'll let you know that there's another side to the story."

Dispute Finder, a Firefox browser add-on launched this week, was designed and built by Ennals and colleagues at Intel, working with computer scientists at the University of California in Berkeley.
Voting system

Once installed, Dispute Finder allows users to flag up controversial statements and suggests links to other sites that dispute the claim. Other users that visit the page can vote up the dispute if they think it's valid, or vote it down if they think the evidence is weak.

Download the Dispute Finder Firefox extension here (Warning: experimental add-on).

That could help web users gain a more complete picture of complicated issues. "If I look at a news story that says the recent Iranian election was rigged, I'm interested to know whether there's a reputable source out there that disputes this, whether there are a substantial number of people that disagree with this, and what evidence they use to support their point of view," Ennals says.
Respected sources

The research team aims to add extra levels of sophistication to future versions of the add-on. For instance, at the moment all disputes are treated equally regardless of the perceived authority of the sources quoted. But in future, users will have the chance to selectively display only the disputes based on evidence from widely respected sources. "You might want to know if a statement has been disputed by an article in the New York Times, but not if it's been disputed in a little-read blog," Ennals says.

He thinks that will encourage those using the new software to highlight reputable controversies rather than using it as a tool to peddle conspiracy theories.

If the software proves successful, the research team plan to build an automated system that will check news stories for previously highlighted disputed claims as soon as they are published online. Ennals thinks the same system could then break free from the web and be used to highlight disputed claims in television closed captioning.

Colin Barras's visit to Mountain View was funded by Intel.

[von Starnberg]

There is the Prussian side and there is the losing side. That is all.