We launched hive.one/COVID19
See what experts have to say about the epidemic
There seems to be more misinformation about COVID19 by the day. You could be at danger right now because of false information that you or one of your closed ones believed. There is little you can do to prevent that. The mainstream media have spread misinformation ('it's just a flu') and so did government authorities (‘masks don’t work’). Not to mention social media, which is full of hoaxes and fake news. It's hard to find information you can trust. This problem is not getting better — it's been getting worse for a long time. The crisis has just made it painfully obvious how dangerous it is.
We need a better system of deciding who is credible, and, which information to trust. Credibility needs to be based on past performance, not on association with institutions. This page is a prototype of such a system. We mapped clusters of experts, made the list public and build tools to allow you to use these groups to filter information.
This way you get to see what information experts share with other experts. You are also one of the first people to access it — right after the experts, but way before the media or authorities pick it up. This approach offers you both more reliable and more real-time information than relying on traditional media or your average social media stream.
How we chose the clusters
We started by mapping these four clusters:
Epidemiology: these are mostly experts in epidemiology. We found this cluster by analyzing the network of Michael Osterholm after he appeared on Joe Rogan podcast. We thought that he knew what he was talking about and we wanted to hear more from him and from people he chooses to listen to.
Complex Systems: we had already followed many accounts from this group, so we’ve seen that they were early to warn about the dangers of the virus. Nassim Taleb and Yaneer Bar-Yam even published a paper advocating early action.
Bitcoin: Bitcoiners were also early to sound an alarm and now are warning about the dangers of government using this crises to limit personal freedoms.
Silicon Valley (and the broader tech/startup ecosystem): This group was also early on the risk and now seems to be actively working on innovations to to fight the epidemic.
We’re open to suggestions for what clusters we should add next. Just send us an email or a DM on Twitter.
What’s next
This is a prototype. The idea is that you should be able to build a dashboard like this yourself. On any topic. With any cluster you choose.
It will take a while, though. In the meantime, we’re considering creating a daily digest of COVID19-related content from these clusters. We’ll create this feature if at least 100 people leave their email address before the end of the week.