Dan Schultz, Ted Han, and Carolyn Rupar are part of the Bad Idea Factory’s crew for reprising Schultz’s MIT Media Lab 2011 graduate thesis project: Truth Goggles...

Let’s say a friend posts a YouTube video link to a politician’s statement on Facebook, but you have a feeling it’s taken out of context. The clip is tightly edited, and you’re curious to see the rest of the statement. Was the politician answering a question? Was the statement part of a larger discussion?

Beyond citizen engagement and fact-checking to educate and build trust, these projects incorporate technology, like gaming and machine learning. The Glorious ContextuBot, for example, provides the original source of sound bites and lets you know when they aired on the news. Another project uses algorithms to score web-based journalism for quality in real-time.

The Knight Prototype Fund will give $1 million to 20 projects designed to fight fake news, stop the spread of misinformation and increase trust in journalism....