In the past several years we have seen explosive growth in the use and misuse of digital "tools". Messaging applications have virtually supplanted face to face communication, while countless global digital platforms host and purvey vast troves of information. This explosion of access to information can be of great societal benefit, but a critical aspect of information acquisition and dissemination has been lost, that being curation. Digital platforms such as X, TikTok, and others, do not curate what is submitted. Once "information" is hosted, it is available to all on that platform. Curation is virtually non-existent other than for legal transgressions. Absent curation, information posted by those having no knowledge of a subject but a strong personal bias can be misleading at best, lethal at worst. Therein lies the challenge. How as scientists and technologists do we address the Crisis of Trust such behaviors have created. Diseases long absent from society such as measles have re-emerged at levels not seen for decades due to mis-information as to vaccine safety and efficacy. Studies known to be fraudulent are cited constantly online to discourage vaccinating children by reciting a long disavowed fraudulent study claiming that vaccines are associated with higher levels of autism in children. Perhaps more alarming, in the age of "AI for everyone", the ability to generate deep fakes to spread disinformation with intent to impugn someone's ethics or destroy a business is now readily available to all.

Being proactive, is it possible to establish means to create curated datastreams in real time so as to mitigate the aforementioned issues? How might one begin such an effort without the inevitable pushback over that being "censorship"? Could curation be launched at the governmental and regulatory level, or as a grass roots/startup driven effort? How can we rebuild trust through the use of technology to curate data, or must this be a human driven "hands-on" process unlikely to scale fast enough to address all issues in a timely manner? If effective, we then must ask ourselves who "owns" such an invaluable curated data asset gleaned from global data on the web. Is there "data sovereignty" allowing ownership of IP created?

The challenge before us is that the long standing "assumption" by the general public that data they receive is accurate and has been solidly vetted is now dangerously wrong, and false data provided by either intent or ignorance has caused a crisis of trust in science, one which we need to address immediately or face dire societal consequences. Whether we undertake the task of rebuilding trust using technology, personal engagement, or a combination of other approaches yet to be discovered, this is an issue we ignore at great societal peril.

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