It’s an interesting idea, and I do think a bunch of factors like this could be used to verify the quality of a news source better than what we have at the moment.

However, I also worry that it may end up turning online news into a more centralised, winner takes all market. That’s because to some degree, a lot of the factors you mention basically come down to popularity and existing name recognition, which automatically assumes the most popular sources are also the most trustworthy.

That may mean that sites which just rehash existing stories (but with a ton of social media followers and name recognition) could win out over more trustworthy ones with less of a following. Which could reward some more dubious sources (like the Daily Mail or Buzzfeed) over more niche but accurate ones.