This mooted experiment on the ABC’s panel discussion show Q&A seems to be an attempt to parlay its Twitter-obsessed following into a kind of instant name-and-shame fact-checking operation.

Are there dangers in asking a television audience – no matter how intelligent or engaged with the subject –  to determine “truth”? What are they?

Before the Enlightenment and the rise of reason, “facts” used to be defined as “what most people think is true” (Mary Poovey, <A History of the Modern Fact>). Might this kind of truth determination lead to a slide back towards that passe definition?