[sfaxon]

There have been a few articles claiming bots are being used on Twitter to impact trending topics. One solution I talked to a friend about was having a yearly subscription fee to make it less cost effective to create hundreds of fake accounts. Of course hitting a critical mass of users would be very difficult. And even if the service did become wildly popular, and trusted, it would only increase the value for companies to game the system.

I think the general population is becoming more aware of how intrusive ad networks are, possibly moving the needle on making a pay service more viable. But I don't think I know any non-tech people that would be willing to pay for a Twitter/Facebook/Reddit type service today.

So, I have no good solution. But I sure hope someone figures out a good solution. The whole concept of "pick your own truth" has some terrifying consequences.