The World Is Changing
Rehan Rather
That is the plain truth. It is the 12th of March, 2026. The US and Israel are in a war against Iran. A war that the US-Israel started and is now impacting the global economy, especially India’s, as Iran refuses to stop and enter negotiations in good faith after being betrayed by the Americans multiple times on promises of diplomacy. A reminder that the world in 2026 is one dominated by AI coming on to the scene, struggling democracies and information networks that inform us humans that are being dominated by a few tech companies, billionaires, and social media algorithms tuned to an economic model of extracting human attention and selling it for ads. Too much? But you haven’t even begun orienting yourself!
Do not worry. It is not your fault. Many do understand and follow what is going on. But it comes at great effort, awareness, exposure, privilege and even pure chance. There is a more common truth. We do not have good navigation tools. We live in the ‘informational wild west’ that is the internet, and we do not have tools to collectively make sense of what is happening.
We are building a digital tool that hopes to be just that - a real compass in the digital and information ecosystem. A compass in your hands. And it is called JET, short for the Journalistic Evaluation Tool. And the call to a technology as advanced as the ‘fighter jet’ is more than pure chance - it is a promise of empowering citizens against the power imbalance in the information ecosystems. A tool, a compass so advanced that it speaks to a technology capability, the fighter JET engine, that only those five countries possess, that also have a VETO power at the UN Security Council.
But how does it work? It is simpler than it might seem, but its simplicity is matched by its rigor in methodology. JET assesses all online ‘content’ based on the principles of Journalism (of Verifiability, Transparency and Independence) across the layers of content, author, publication and platform to help you see how information is constructed, and you yourself be the judge of what to trust. It is a nutritional label for what your brain consumes. And it works precisely because its methodology for assessing and scoring is exactly what it screens for, verifiable, transparent and independent.
This project is years in the making and considers the plethora of factors, realities, and challenges that shape our information landscapes and networks. JET does not work without answering those questions. And we do. We have a plan and a path. It is a path towards restoring the original promise of the internet - democratisation. Which means acknowledging that in the modern social media-driven digital age, we are all participants. The internet democratised information and publishing, which in turn democratised journalism. It means now we are all responsible for its future. Embrace that reality and join us in this mission. Join the BETA waitlist.
Read the provisional white paper.