ified
The Real Perils on the Internet:
Misinformation at Your Fingertips
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Touted, and rightly so, as a wonderful, information-at-your-fingertips resource, the Net unfortunately is also a source of much misinformation, some of it innocent, some of it just plain ignorant, and some of it quite mercenary, dangerous, and deliberately calculated.
As working writers, your SORT-ified News editors often have occasion to turn to the Net for some basic research. It saves an amazing amount of time that once was spent in legwork prowling through libraries and government agencies, so we can personally attest to and indeed loudly applaud the Net's usefulness as an information resource. Unfortunately we can also attest to the staggering amount of "bad" (incorrect, misleading, inaccurate, or deliberately untruthful) information that litters the information highway. This "bad" information runs from outright scams and cons to so-called "new age" health claims. It comes from historical "revisionists" (sometimes credentialed and sometimes not) running the gamut from holocaust deniers to the "helicopters in ancient Africa" crowd. It comes from the paranoia mongers with their "seven proofs that the government is keeping the truth about UFO's from us" to the "who really killed Jack Kennedy?" conspiracy theorists. And it comes from a lot of good people who care enough about something to write about it on their own personal web pages but allow their biases to readjust facts or just haven't done all their homework first.
The beauty of the Internet is that it is democratic. Today just about everyone with access and a little technical knowledge can publish their own web page and pretty much say what they think on it. If you have a cause, a pet theory or an argument you can put it up on your web page in a matter of hours and "publish" it for the world to see. And, if you are reasonably adept with your technical know-how, or use one of the many simple web publishing programs now available, you can put out a very smart looking, well designed, and professional appearing site. It can, in fact, appear just as professional, authoritative, and formidable as a site published by a university, professional, or government organization. In short, John or Jane Q. Doe's web pages complete with fact sheets promoting the ingestion of grilled earthworms as a health aid can appear, physically at least, just as authoritative and professional as a web site hosted by The American Medical Association. Add an acceptable level of writing skill and suddenly a new "information source" exists on the Internet.
Along comes Johnny, or Joanna, age 12, doing homework on earthworms and punching out a few keywords on a search engine. Along with a couple of dozen (usually thousands--but Johnny just checks out a few) pages of good sources happens to pop up John or Jane Doe's "Earthworms and Your Health" page. If Johnny is bright enough he probably doesn't rush out to the back yard and start ingesting earthworms but the "information" ends up in Johnny's homework assignment as an interesting "fact" about earthworms. Fortunately, it's likely in this case that the ensuing scenarios are relatively benign (unless perhaps Johnny's teacher is into alternative medicine or weird eating experiments). But next week Joanna starts looking for information on the Net about the Holocaust (do you know how many "Holocaust denier" pages are on the Net?) or about the problems of the inner city (well polished, well disguised, racist pages abound) about the United Nations (did you know that the UN is working with space aliens to overthrow American democracy?) or about grandmother's arthritis problems (you can find "cures" ranging from copper bracelets to magnetic patches).
It all sounds silly and obvious enough here, but Johnny and Joanna are only 12, and we recently spent an evening arguing with a 35-year-old woman about the "facts" she had found on the Net, which convinced her that homeopathic medicine would cure her severe allergy problems.
So what is the answer? There isn't an easy one. In an ideal world we would suggest that Johnny takes a good course in critical thinking (imagine trying to find one though today in Johnny's school) or that our 35-year-old friend do a lot more solid research (she " just doesn't have the time to read anymore" and besides she "doesn't trust doctors and the establishment medical profession").
Tighter censorship and regulation of the Internet? No. Policing the Net isn't the answer, nor is policing people's minds. Recently, for example, the Federal Trade Commission lodged complaints against a number of companies that used the Internet to claim that their products such as magnets could cure such problems as AIDS cancer and arthritis. While such obvious commercial scams might fall under the legal domain of one or more Federal agencies, it is would be the height of sheer folly to suggest that government agencies examine and censor the writings and opinions of private citizens on their web pages. And, as can be readily seen, while commercial sites certainly promote much misinformation (and sometimes-outright scams) on the Net, much more of it comes from the non-commercial web sites of organizations and private citizens.
No, if "policing" is needed then we have to do it ourselves, for ourselves. Not censorship, but some good detective work. And we have to teach our children how to do it.
First of all, always read critically. How straight is the writer playing with you? Junk the page that is sloppily put together and filled with misspelling. If the writer doesn't care enough to make a decent presentation or even run a spell-checker how careful can you trust them to be with the facts? Remember though as we mentioned earlier that there are a lot of slick and profession looking crackpot pages out there today. Looks aren't everything. But they can be pointers.
Look for what advertising writers call "weasel" words. Words such as "may" and "might". Used legitimately they can be cautionary qualifiers. Used by the less scrupulous they can be deceptive-"Ingesting earthworms may offer significant benefits to the state of your health and might add years to your life!" Notice how that little exclamation mark at the end of the sentence lets you just skip over that "may" and "might. Look out for jargon words or phrases that are not explained, or "coined words" that you can't find in your dictionary.
Sometimes they can be clever and innocent, but sometimes they are definite red markers for some tricky game-playing-"if we assume the existence then of what we prefer to call the "psychopseudospherian" presence then we can begin to understand why aliens from other planets appear to take such an interest in us."
Check the source of the information. Who is writing what you are reading? What qualifications does the person have for writing on the subject? Writers don't have to be experts to offer sound facts, and not all experts are always to be trusted, but it's good to know as much as possible about who actually wrote what you are reading. Is it an individual representing his or her self, or are they writing for a group or an organization? If so, what is the nature of the group or organization? Is it commercial, non-profit, a lobby group? In short why does the particular web page that you are reading exist? What are the motivations of the writer or the information source? Is something attempting to be sold. If so, how sound is the product? Remember that people attempt to "sell" you not only physical entities but also ideas.
If facts are given, are the sources for the facts also given? How trustworthy are those sources? One of the beauties of the Internet is its searching abilities. Take a few minutes to check out the named sources. You may not be able to find the exact quote or figures given, but there is a good chance that with just a little bit of detective work you can find something more about the source that is given in what you are reading. You might find our with a little searching among the various search engines for instance that "Dr. X" quoted on the benefits of earthworm ingestion also turns out to have written a number of articles on a new "perpetual motion engine". Can this be the same Dr. X? Why yes, it certainly appears so, but Dr. X is not a doctor of medicine at all but holds a doctorate in engineering. And let's see can we track down the institution that awarded him his degree? Yes, there it is - The Harry Nottobright Western Pacific United Correspondence University of Southern California. Can this be the same guy? Why yes, look it is. See he even has his own web page devoted to selling fresh earthworms straight from his 50-acre earthworm farm.
Even if all looks well, double-check what you are reading with other sources if possible. Are there other articles on the Net available on the same subject? Take a look at some of them. If you find that they often quote one another and few other "outside" sources (as often happens with web pages and books by the "aliens are among us" UFO believers), then get suspicious and jump outside their context and try some wider searches. Are there contrary or pro and con arguments, take a look at them. If it is a straight news story that you are getting your information from, say The New York Times, why stop there? It's wonderfully easy on the Net to jump to the Washington Post or the Chicago Tribune for example and see what they may have reported on the same story. Here in our office we don't depend on just one CD-ROM encyclopedia but always check through three of them for different articles on the same subject. Remember that everyone has a slant, a personal choice of expression, and an individual selection of "relevant" facts.
Don't just depend on the links available on the web page. Remember that the page operator has picked them. They may be useful, and often are, but get out to a search engine and do a little investigating on your own.
While we haven't covered everything here in this brief space, we have, we hope, given you a start.