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Show HN: Fighting Harmful Coronavirus Disinformation
4 points by fredrikaurdal 2294 days ago
Hi everyone

In times like these it's important to watch out for each other. A great part of that is having access to the right information that can be crucial for everyone's well being.

I'm sure many of you have heard about people advising others through viral social media posts about dubious treatments, involving anything from garlic water to Alex Jones selling a toothpaste that is supposed to cure you. This is all incredibly irresponsible and dangerous for the world community.

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this, and decided to put together a Google spreadsheet, which allows anyone to list products, the claims associated with various products and references to such claims.

This way, no one is chosen as the arbitrator of truth, but rather has the ability to back up claims with a reference that either supports or refutes the claim.

You can find the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i_GSzKB9O7_AAUwMi93D1LgCAkRwI9dD-_81IpLEasA/edit?usp=sharing

Right now anybody can edit the spreadsheet. If it becomes gets popular, I will probably have to limit interaction to comments, in order to mitigate spam.

Stay safe out there,

Fredrik

1 comments

I had to lookup one such claim yesterday. Maybe a domain name like 'corona fake news' is still available?
I have redirected the domain AlchemyList.com to the spreadsheet, which should make it easy for anyone to pass it on to others.