Which is better, in-band signaling or out-of-band signaling? Old-school telecom geeks know what I’m talking about. In-band means that control codes (start, stop, ready, etc.) are transmitted as part of the data stream. Out-of-band means that control signals are transmitted on a dedicated channel separate from the data stream.
Why bring this up? Because it’s gained new salience in the era of Trump falsehoods: They now come so thick and fast that new standards have to be developed to deal with them. CNN, for example, apparently endorses out-of-band fact checking. They simply let Trump speak and paste the fact checking into the chyron. The New York Times, by contrast, prefers in-band fact checking. They let readers know about Trump’s lies directly in the text of their stories.
Which is the better standard? Do we even need a standard for correcting Trump’s lies? Will Trump be able to overwhelm us regardless of which standard we choose? These are critical questions for the upcoming campaign season. Who will take the lead on this?
