Buzz
When will we have the COVID-19 vaccine? Will the sitcom Alf be rebooted? Facebook wants to address these questions or at least make some predictions. The company's latest iOS app, Forecast, enables experts to make predictions and then assess their accuracy. These experts (invited users at the current time) can offer answers and explain their reasoning. Other users can then vote on the predictions they believe are most likely to come true.
Initially, Facebook will invite members of the healthcare, research, and academic communities to make predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the world. At a time when Facebook and other major tech platforms are facing allegations of facilitating the spread of misinformation, fake news, propaganda, conspiracy theories, and other unrealistic content, an app focused on making predictions about the future seems somewhat discouraged.
Forecast predictions may reflect people's thoughts, but COVID-19 is no game. To grasp the world, scientists form hypotheses, essentially an educational form of speculation. But then, they don't vote to determine if a hypothesis is correct; instead, they test, experiment, gather data, try to prove, refute hypotheses, and ultimately aim to publish peer-reviewed results.
In a way, the Forecast app turns hypotheses into final outcomes, enabling users to make predictions and explain their reasoning. In other words, it creates a hypothesis. However, instead of researching and testing predictions through scientific methods, Forecast tracks the number of votes a specific question receives. However, not only focusing on the COVID-19 topic, it seems current users can ask questions and predict on any topic. Scrolling through the platform reveals many questions have been posed, from politics to everyday life.
This is a strange experiment, and its purpose is not clear. If someone has a question about an important event or topic, they can seek information from a reputable source and then try to find additional data. Forecast appears to simplify this process to some extent.
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