A knowledge service to cut the noise in today’s infodemic

“If you can’t follow what’s happening, you can’t adequately think or act in this crucial moment.”

Trump impeachment rally - San Francisco Federal Building 12/2019. Image by me.

Today’s info war sure is info hell, isn’t it? The United Nations is calling it an “infodemic”.

When I talk to people — intelligent people, educated people, media and news professionals, tuned in people, random people — pretty much when I talk to everyone, they don’t know at all what I know.

Or they know a lot less, or they admit they get their news from “CNN…and FoxNews, for balance”, or they simply aren’t trying to follow the firehose of info flying at us these days.

The enemy is noise, the goal is clarity.

~ Jon Stewart told the New York Times this week

Most people I talk to are clinging to an outdated and irrelevant opinion or worldview like it’s a life raft.

This is a problem.

An information diet that doesn’t serve you is COSTLY

• during a pandemic that requires us to reenvision how we live;

• in an Election Year;

• when Western Liberal Democracy is under attack both domestic and foreign, with a main weapon being military-grade psy op disinformation and propaganda directed at a civilian population.

If people can’t follow what’s happening or learn the historical basis of what’s happening or perceive the machinations of global alliances and systems including the largest law enforcement action against organized crime that the world has ever seen, they can’t adequately think and act in this moment.

It’s a costly problem that can be solved, as Jon Stewart points out, by clarity.

“For more than a decade I’ve been following sources & stories that are coming together now. I want you to see what I see.”

I’m an info hound as you know. I’ve been curating speciality lists of expert sources on Twitter for more than a decade, and relying on them almost exclusively for my news gathering needs through the Arab Spring and the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey. The list of 1,000 sources I mention in this post was meant to be my lens on American politics and current affairs for the 2016 Presidential Election.

I’ve been following stories that are all coming together now. And I’m working to share that with you. So you can see what I see.

Introducing a curated knowledge & awareness project for concerned citizens

See a few news stories a day…

Subscribe to a daily Trust Is A License Nuzzle newsletter with just a few of the top news stories shared from 1,000 curated sources

Knowledge Is Power (formerly referred to as Trust Is A License, a phrase from Shefaly Yogendra) is generative journalism, a community service to inform citizens

At its core the project is a Twitter account run by a small group of diverse centrists who see all sides of global and societal threats and want to ensure our fact-based perspective gets voice and distribution in this age of extreme disinformation campaigns.

We’re also exploring a variety of other ways to connect, present, and share this vital and contextual information that only become more relevant with each passing day. We all need to know this. It’s our history. More on that soon.

One of our readers has described us as civil service journalism. “What you’re doing is generative journalism. It’s a community service to inform citizens at a time when the Fourth Estate is dying and under attack, and news media has devolved into propaganda machines.”

“We vet content & sources, metabolize info & amplify points to help you understand this moment in time. ”

As the mainstream media failure became clear, citizen researchers and curators like me picked up the slack. At Knowledge Is Power, our focus has been on vetting the content and sources, metabolizing the information, and finding ways to underline and amplify clear points we believe are valuable to cutting through the noise and understanding this moment in time.

We hope to connect the dots for ourselves and others. We started doing this for OURSELVES. Yet, it’s for others. Without any marketing the account’s organic reach has grown 160x in its first year.

By vetting and amplifying the work of citizen researchers, whistleblowers, journalists, social justice workers, national security experts and more, we aim to strengthen democracy and stop the playing-the-extremes-so-nothing-gets-done horseshoe that divides us.

“Our mission is to help with what comes next: when we dig out from the damage, there will be a massive need to educate people about what just happened.
”

As people begin to dig out from the damage of the cyber war/information war/total kinetic war against Western Liberal Democracy (including Trump & transnational organized crime) that we are currently experiencing in America and throughout the world, there’s going be a need for a massive education of the American people about what just happened. Hollywood is already telling these stories. We want to help with that.

…or get everything we share

Follow the Trust Is A License Twitter feed to see who & what we’re highlighting & what discussions we’re a part of.

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A message to white people: you must do the work to be anti-racist

If you're not doing the work to be anti-racist, you're not doing the work that matters to our fellow humans of color. 

***This is a message to all the white people I know and don't know: WE HAVE TO GET THIS. This is on us.***

Please, and thank you: Apply yourself to see and understand structural racism, an insidious force in our institutions and society that keeps POC from partaking in the kind of life and opportunities you as a white person expect and often enjoy without question. 

Then understand it some more and share what you learn with all the white people you know. This is on us. 

P.S. Your white privilege cannot be renounced, you've got it for life, and it's granted to you because other people perceive you as white. It doesn't matter what you think of yourself. "Oh I may be whitish but I'm not a racist". So bear the burden of finding out what white privilege is and how to use it for good as a white ally. The #1 thing you can do is educate other white people. I'm doing that in a variety of ways. Ask me something you've been wondering, and I'll try to answer. Send me a private message if you want. I am here for questions. 

Our advisor Craig Kornblau advises Google Ventures on the future of film in a streaming world

It's been wonderful for the past year and a half having Craig Kornblau advise our entertainment tech startup 10 BLOCK  — and Google Ventures’ GV — on the intersection of the entertainment industry and the tech world. "The reason I decided to work with early-stage and growth companies is, having lived in big corporate America and big entertainment companies, it's really hard to find massive innovation in large companies. I think real innovation is going to come from small companies," he says in this interview about the future of film in a streaming world.

Ghost kitchens: In the news for fraud, and as a good VC investment?

I went out to dinner 2 weeks ago and ended up talking to a TV reporter for an investigative segment he was working on about the ghost kitchens of GrubHub. That particular restaurant’s owner was shocked to find his establishment being advertised on GrubHub since he does not have a listing there, and doesn’t even do delivery. So who made the food that the online delivery customer ordered? And who received the customer’s cash for it?

This brand hijacking system needs an immediate revisit.

I saw that a week earlier, a local blog reported the poor conditions at a ghost kitchen.

Read broke-ass Stuart’s reporting on ghost kitchens in San Francisco’s SOMA district.

And yet today, an industry intelligence newsletter says that "ghost kitchens are red hot" today because they let restaurants operate without brick and mortar dining locations. That’s PitchBook Data.

Meanwhile, the ghost kitchens turn out fraudulent food, defrauding restaurants and diners alike (as seen in the news stories above). This is a good investment? In the time of COVID19??

In the news & behind the scenes: it’s the flywheel

Scott Galloway takes on the streaming wars in this week’s No Mercy/No Malice newsletter.

He writes

“My colleague Sonia Marciano teaches that to achieve success, the best strategy is to find the dimension with the greatest variance — the biggest delta between best and worst. In the streaming wars, both flywheel and distribution offer the greatest variance, and monopolies dominate those categories. 

“A flywheel is a disk that stores kinetic energy and then spins it out to a nearby engine. In the context of business, as the flywheel rotates it increases output or revenue without increasing input or cost. The ultimate flywheel is Amazon. Amazon Prime attracts shoppers who want a wide assortment of products with rapid fulfillment. These subscribers also enjoy the benefits of services like Amazon Prime Video, which increase the stickiness of Prime and time spent on the platform.” 

From “Land of the Undead” | No Mercy / No Malice from Scott ‘Prof’ Galloway

Here’s Galloway on how these flywheels, or feedback loops, can work in the world of video on demand, the world of 10 Block…the mobile streaming platform I’ve been running as chief operating officer for the past two years.

“In the context of the streaming wars, SVOD adds momentum to the flywheel. Movies and entertainment evoke powerful emotions. The connective tissue of the flywheel is increasingly emotion. The NPS score (consumers’ emotional connection to a company) is negative to zero for ecommerce and internet companies, but it’s strong for SVOD companies. Loving Fleabag means you’ll buy your next toaster from Amazon, not Target or Williams-Sonoma.” 

It was interesting to read Scott Galloway today talking about the winner-take-all effect of flywheels in the context of the streaming war macrocosm. As the cofounder of a mobile streaming platform, talking about the microcosm of the flywheel we built into the product fills my days. Those emotions that drive the flywheel in our patent-pending social discovery system drive viewers to share what they’re watching, what they think of it, and invite friends to view with them.

I took a peek back at some of my own shorthand sources and insights on flywheels and growth loops captured on a Trello card. (Trello is my favorite productivity tool at the moment, and for quite a while, BTW. <More on that later.)

Readers' reviews are a gift that keeps on giving. Thanks, Leyla!

“The book captures the essence of Turkey and especially Turkish women in a way I have never seen before- I got emotional almost every chapter’s end!”

You know, having a book in print that people keep passing on, and people keep finding on their own, is such a gift. I just ran across this recent review of Tales from the Expat Harem by Leyla Tural, and it’s so lovely.

Thanks, Leyla!

While we’re at it, here are some other fun ones.

“I have a feeling that in time this book will be seen as a classic, as it is a unique record and most unusual. Well done to the publishers for taking a chance on it!”

Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts after reading, even Roseleen who writes “I've read it and it's over now.”

Translation by Amazon: “That's exactly what I expected: humorous, witty never boring. Dispel clichés on the Turkish mindset, sometimes sad, but never trivial. It is also a great exercise for anyone who wants to keep in training with English, as it is perfectly understandable for those who have a good level. Perfect delivery. See you soon”

Here's the venture team I sent to the finals at UC Berkeley's school of engineering entrepreneurship bootcamp