When we realized all the processed food we were eating was causing us physical pain, we created Nutrition Labels that allowed us to better judge for ourselves whether or not we wanted to eat something. Online content is our new processed food, and we need a way to better, and easily, understand what it is we're consuming.
While most of the time there's nothing preventing someone from doing research into the validity of the content they're consuming, people rarely go the extra mile to do the inspection. We've long been a soundbite/headline culture, and that's never going to change. However, with some simple UX/UI changes to the way we present content, and tools to passively do this for us, we can have a better sense of what it is we're consuming, and make decisions accordingly.
Is the video I'm watching supposed to be "news" and "factual" even though it was created by someone with no history of reporting on the topic? Is the article I'm reading actually parody, but my friend sent it to me as though it was real?
Wouldn't it be nice if we had the means to easily understand the genesis and validity of the content we were consuming.
