What do you think of the Super PAC App?

1. 74

   Mighty Momposted 13 years ago

   Saw this on the news this morning.
   Gosh, I hope people use the heck out of this free app.
   MIT students rock!
   What are your thoughts?
   
   (CNN) -- What if every political ad came with a "truthiness" disclaimer?
   
   That's essentially the goal of the Super PAC App, a new project from former students at MIT's Media Lab.
   
   Their free iPhone app, which will be available on Wednesday, listens to political advertisements on television and matches the ad's audio waves against a database -- much like the Shazam app identifies music. It then tells the app's user who paid for the ad and how much they're spending on the campaign before pointing them to nonpartisan sources -- PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and others -- to try to verify the ad's claims.
   
   The app is free of advertising and is funded in full by a grant from the Knight Foundation, according to Dan Siegel, one of the app's co-creators.
   
   The fact-checking process is especially important this year, said Siegel, because Super PACs for the first time can spend unlimited funds on presidential campaign ads. In recent weeks TV airwaves in battleground states have been full of ads making negative claims about both President Obama and his rival Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee.
   
   "The campaigns are spending a lot of money and all of that money is going into television ads," he said. "And therefore there's a need for users to be able to play through the noise a little bit."

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      habeeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Sounds great, but I'm not sure how many people will use it. Extreme partisans - on BOTH sides - believe what they want to believe. Maybe the handful of indies will use it.

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      1. 74

         Mighty Momposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Probably so, Habee.
         People inclined to question what they're seeing are already dialed in with factcheck.org and other similar sites.
         I think it's a cool idea, though!

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            habeeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Oh, I think it's cool, too!

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            1. 74

               Mighty Momposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Yeah, but will you download it and use it?
               I won't.
               I get all my political facts from Hub Pages!
               

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                  habeeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  

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