Our mission is to give you control of a daily news experience that sharpens your focus and broadens your mind.

Since October, our Community Editor has been working with the first members of the Kinzen community to curate a list of sources aligned with this mission.

We see curation as a positive, productive force in our lives. We are defined more by what we choose to include rather than exclude. We want to make sure the Kinzen app offers a diversity of voices that reflects the diversity of its members.

We have added more than 3,000 curated sources. They are both local and global, broad and niche, established and emerging.

The common denominator among the best sources is collaboration with communities, based on shared interests or location. Good sources have other common characteristics:

• Have a core competency and stick with it
• Promote deeper understanding of that specialist topic
• Are curious and open to correction
• Value original thinking

The Kinzen Community Editor has been working with a group of ‘First Members’ who joined our curator forum late last year. Together, they built a directory featuring thousands of sources. The work of this network has enabled a richer experience for anyone who consumes the app, and Kinzen is rewarding those who were active in these conversations with 6 months free access to all the premium features of the app.

In some cases, sources have been difficult for us to integrate because of data and technical issues. Currently you may struggle to find an obvious source in the app. We’re working on that. But let us know if you spot an omission: curators@kinzen.com

There will be sources that do not meet a basic threshold of credibility that will not be included in the app. These decisions will be taken initially by the Kinzen Community Editor on the basis of the following criteria judgements about the source:

• Hide their true affiliations in an attempt to deceive followers
• Systematically leverage automated networks on social platforms to subvert or hijack public conversations
• Derive commercial gain from knowingly spreading misinformation
• Spread hatred in all its forms, including racism, misogyny and homophobia
• Promote conspiracy theories in an effort to undermine scientific fact on issues of public health (e.g. public vaccination programmes) and environmental security (e.g. climate change)

We recognise that there are a small number of sources who require a more nuanced judgment about their place in Kinzen. For example, some sources may have a track record of inciting political controversy, spreading propaganda or occasionally passing on misinformation. Yet they may also observe a basic standard of journalism, be open to correction, be explicit about their affiliations and provide a valuable insight into a political trend or movement with which the member may seek to be exposed to.

In this small number of edge cases, Kinzen will include the source and leave it to members to make their own decision about whether to include or exclude from their personal news routine.

We are committed to developing full transparency about these sources, and developing more comprehensive source profiles to guide the member. We are exploring a tagging system, which automatically alerts the member to documented concerns about the credibility of a source.

We will work with third-party fact-checking organisations and others building technical solutions. There is a lot of good work being done in this area and we are in a continual review as these organisations develop.

We will also work to develop a moderator group within the Kinzen community to more effectively process and evaluate community feedback on sources. We will pay particular attention to feedback from Kinzen members at the article level, to build up a more comprehensive assessment of a source’s credibility.

All members can suggest a source that they feel is missing. Go to the Settings page, send the name of the source to ‘Contact Kinzen Support’. The Community Editor will be monitoring.

Anyone who wants to join our curation forum, where we’ve been discussing these issues in greater detail, can do so by signing up here. We want to build the world’s best directory of sources, so please do join.

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