Monday, October 8, 2012

Skepticism Tool: RBUTR.com

Logo used from the start of the Chrome project...
Logo used from the start of the Chrome project until March 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
RBUTR.com, which is basically "rebutter" (a person who rebuts) is a tool that lets people know about resources that rebuts a particular page's topic.

Right now this only exists as a Chrome browser plug-in. Basically, you install it, and in the toolbar you see a new icon for RBUTR, which shows how many "rebuttal" pages are there for a particular webpage.

Clearly, users need to ADD these pages.

For example, if you browse to a webpage that sells some super-juice, and you've seen webpages before that debunked the super-juice myth, then on the "pro-juice" webpage, you can use RBUTR to generate a link to the anti-juice page. Only people who use RBUTR will see the link.




RBUTR will also let you add general rebuttal links (debunks all such super-juices) vs. specific rebuttal links (debunks a specific brand of super-juice sold on that specific webpage).

It is hoped that people who surf upon suspect scam websites, and found PROPER reviews of the scam, will contribute RBUTR links to such. Call it... external cross-linking and commenting.


There are other apps like this before, like Google Sidewiki, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, and to a lesser extent, Reddit and Digg, where people comment upon and/or discuss existing URLs, but RBUTR is designed, much like Web-of-Trust (WOT) to be passive warnings about diametrically opposite views or skepticism expressed upon certain URLs and/or domains.

Feel free to add a couple RBUTR entries yourself... if you use Chrome.




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