Liam Hoffman wants you to be a little more skeptical. Hoffman’s a student at Princeton University who grew up in the Indianapolis area, and he created a company to help students like him understand how to think critically about the news and information they see online.
That project he started is called Lighthouse. It’s a browser extension you can add to Google Chrome. When you get it, a box shows up on the side of any article you’re reading that explains the author’s bias, shows more stories on the same topic and can even generate a citation for students working on their homework.
Hoffman, 20, just finished his sophomore year studying public and international affairs. He and his fellow student startup founders are pitching it to schools, including some in Indianapolis. The administrators will be able to purchase a membership so students can use it as a homework tool and think through whether everything they read online is credible. It’s open to anyone for individual subscriptions, too.
Throughout the process, Hoffman has asked high school students, college students and teachers for feedback.
“Every time we have these conversations, we’re kind of coming away with like, ‘Oh, here’s 30 new things we can add to the product,’” he said. That’s how they added a “bookshelf” feature where teachers can add assigned articles and a citation generator students asked for.
Hoffman first got interested in exploring whether people trust the media because his freshman year at Princeton was during the 2024 presidential election. Ahead of the midterm elections this year, he hopes Lighthouse can give people confidence in their vote.
“We provide a lot more context, a lot more analysis of these stories that happens in a much simpler, much easier to read, format,” he said. “Hopefully, I think that’s going to be a really big impact from us. And it can provide people with a lot more clarity.”
Indiana, and Indianapolis, have relatively low voter turnout statistics. In this year’s primary election in May, almost 15.8% of registered voters showed up to the polls. And that was the highest rate for a primary since 2010.
“A big problem we have is apathy on the side of the voters,” Hoffman said. “So just making that process easier is a big step towards having better elections with a more informed and more confident electorate.”
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Mirror Indy reporter Sophie Young covers services and resources. Contact her at sophie.young@mirrorindy.org.
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