Eyeo, the developer of the popular unwanted advertisement blocker Adblock Plus has launched a product using the blockchain, which helps to identify online resources to create fake news reports Messgaes.
The Trusted News extension evaluates the integrity and reliability of online news sources and marks content as "trusted", "unknown", "clickbait", "satire", "user", or "malicious". Once added to the browser, the extension marks trusted sources with a green check mark.
According to the developer, Trusted News classifies sites based on four third — party sources-PolitiFact, Snopes, Wikipedia and Zimdars’ List. However, it is not clear how many sites have already been classified by the system at this stage.
The extension is currently available only for the Chrome browser, and analyzes only English-language content. It uses MetaCert Protocol that supports reliable registry URLS. This data will be moved to the Ethereum blockchain, and MetaCert tokens will be used as protection against manipulation and user reward system.
According to the Director of ecosystems, Ben Williams, The application is designed to encourage users to evaluate the sources of information, leaving reviews and comments, for which a fee will be charged.
Now Eueo is testing the extension to determine its usefulness for users. The creators do not plan to monetize the extension yet. At the same time, the company will refrain from creating a "white list", the sites from which will not be evaluated by users.
As previously reported, the startup Userfeeds from Warsaw attracted $800 thousand seed investment for the development of a blockchain platform for content distribution, which will counteract the spread of fake news.
