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There's a slow erosion of coverage for local news and
even local gossip these days. On one hand, the big news
sources can't possibly provide coverage for every single
local location so they have become consolidators of
nationwide or international news which works very well.
On the other hand, the local news providers have seen a
lot of their revenue disappear (think local papers) and
they are scaling back the coverage they provide for
local news. A big function of these local news
providers is to filter and more importantly, vet
information that they come across to check facts,
validity, etc of what they turn around and provide to
the public. So how does the Zipper address the
truthfulness of what is provided in the system. Glad
you ask and we feel, given the constraints of the too
big to cover and too small to cover issues above, the
community policed option of the Zipper is the only real
answer to great and extensive local news coverage.
Let's say you come across a post in the Zipper that you
know is incorrect. Maybe you're working on a political
campaign and you see a post showing that your candidate
accepted contributions from a certain questionable
source. You know (since you're in charge of campaign
contributions) that this is not the case. It's not
uncommon with campaigns, even before the age of the
internet and hyper communication, for such misleading
stories to be put out there in the public but the
internet does speed up the process and potential damage
from such stories. Just to make sure, you confirm with
your candidate to make sure there was no secret, back
door deal with the source in question and the answer is
a resounding "No". Okay. So what do you do now?
There are two built-in mechanisms in the Zipper to
address incorrect information very quickly. The first
is the Thumbs. Next to any Zip post or re-zip, you will
see a thumb's up on the left and a thumb's down on the
right with a number next to each. This is your quick
fire way to say that a Zip is incorrect, inappropriate,
solicitation, boring, or just plain annoying. Too many
of these thumb's downs and the message will start to
drop off the radar. However, you're not the only vote
(or voter) in town and if a lot of people are confirming
it (the Thumb's Up), it's going to stay around and get
traction. The more people that vote, the more sure you
can be of the Thumbs as a rough litmus test for accuracy
of a given Zip local news or local gossip post. There's
another step which goes even further. The Rezip.
If
you click on an actual message, you'll bring up the full
message and the Rezips or responses to the original
message. This is important since other people may have
corroborating or contradictory information. You would
fall into the second camp and post a Zip with a solid
statement that the source did not provide funding and
you establish your position in the campaign to validate
your comment. You can comment in the rezip and even
create a new Zip to establish your train of thought. In
the battle of ideas and opinions, the Zipper is the
ultimate tool to level the playing field and get to the
truth surrounding all local news and local gossip items
in real time. Keep in mind that just because the Zip is
online, it doesn't preclude you from local, State, and
Federal laws surrounding slander, libel, and fraud.
Play by the rules and we can all enjoy the benefits of
this theatre of ideas.
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