Clarifying Political Ads, One Commercial at a Time

Last month, Slice highlighted the Super PAC App, a mobile app that can scan audio from a political advertisement and determine who paid for the ad, which candidate they support, how much money they raised, and whether the ad’s claims are factual. The free, non-partisan app was developed by Media Lab students Dan Siegel MBA '12 and Jennifer Hollett.

Another MIT alumnus, Nadeem Mazen '06, is also working to clarify the political rhetoric. Mazen and colleagues at the Cambridge startup NimbleBot have created ReactVid, a mobile app that uses a Wikipedia-like model of "credible crowdsourcing" to determine the validity behind statements in political advertisements.

Mazen, a lecturer at Sloan’s Entrepreneurship Center and MIT’s varsity squash coach, hopes ReactVid can provide clarity on misleading statements and encourage honest political discourse.

Mazen told boston.com:

"We are extremely concerned about the way that people are being communicated with as the (presidential) campaign approaches. It seems like the super PACs have a huge amount of say and a huge amount of sway. And it’s time for all of us to do something about it."

At ReactVid, vetted fact-checkers—“Republicans, Democracts, Indepedents, non-affiliated, fed up,” Mazen says—review political advertisements, determine each statement’s authenticity, and label each claim “true,” “false,” or “ambiguous,” backed up with annotated research.

Visitors to the site can also vote on each commercial and compare their opinions. According to boston.com, Nimblebot hopes to eventually have 6-8 vetted researchers tackling each claim.

Do you think fact-checking apps like ReactVid and Super PAC App can help keep political action committees honest?  Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook.