Slashdot Mirror
Digging For Truth Online Is Up To You
An anonymous reader writes "Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released the second annual report on obstacles to the free flow of information online. Vint Cerf wrote the forward, where he argues it is the responsibility of every citizen to test the truth of information on the Web, and draw attention to incorrect information, rather than the government's responsibility to dictate the 'truth.' ZDNet Australia has an article on the report."
Does that mean I must aquire common sense?
How can I "trust" this statement?
Mother, Should I Trust the Government?
Interestingly, the German geovernment tries to implement legislation that would require/force anybody who writes about a company or a person on the internet to publish a corrcection/opposing view from that company/person. If one would not agree to do that, one could be charged and fined or jailed. The government wants to implement the same rules that govern the professional print media to each and every internet post of a private citizen, including all the sanctions associated with a possible "breach". This could potentially result in web spiders looking for e.g. the name SCO, and force each and every slashdot poster to publish a correction. It would bring the internet and any discussoin to a crawl.
WHA!? You mean everything I read on the net isn't true? *gasp* My world is crumbling before me. Now the trick is, how can you always tell if it is true or not? Heck, my mother, a 7-8th grade advanced science teacher did a test with the class showing them an online article about the evils of hydrogen hydroxide. At the end of the class, over half the class believed that there was a serious problem in the world with hydrogen hydroxide that needs to be dealt with. Only one student in the class knew the truth of what hydrogen hydroxide really is: water. Now, if we can so easily be tricked into believing water is evil, how the heck are we suppose to be aware of what is true or not? Make a professional looking page and sound smart, and the masses will follow! Just a thought
I came, I saw, She conquered.
I know several teachers who have a hard time getting their pupils to understand that information they find on the internet is not necessarily acurate. Teaching people to be critical is a majour task for schools, I think.
IAAAL - I am actually a lawyer
So if it is +5 informative it is true?
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Given the extent to which various forces act on the big commercial media companies, Surely it makes more sense to doubt almost all media coverage in isolation? compare Fox/CNN with Indymedia with the BBC with various web blogs from people who are *there* and then come to your own conclusions.... each of those sources will be biassed (either by the opinions of their owners or their governments) but by comparing enough sources you might find a germ of truth somewhere....
-=DaveHowe=-
The internet's strength - it gives everyone a voice - is also it's weakness because there is too much noise.
Filtering the signal from the noise is the challenge, and it's one the government is not up to.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
+1 True
In my opinion one of the best things about the internet is its ability to (help people) shine light in dark corners.
Especially with more people making the Internet read/write instead of read-only, with blogs and Wikis for example.
As DRM systems come into play, I wonder if they will also be applied to text, not just music and video. If so, that will lock up more content, and be a serious barrier to information flow. Imagine if 90% of slashdot outbound links became pay-per-view. Maybe the silver lining of such a scenario would be that blogs and other bottom-up content would have even more importance.
---
SuaraMalaysia.com - Driving free speech initiatives in Malaysia
+1 True / -1 False for a long time, as none of the other moderations really fit, when someone is doing their best to be insightful or informative but is just getting it all wrong. As if you have already modded the thread, you cant reply to point out their inaccuracies :/
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Sometimes I can't stand this group.
The article's about taking some personal responsibility to fact-check the crap you read - turn your brain on instead of take what you hear for granted - whether here, on Fox or CNN, from the govt. of your choice or even the online rantings of your Uncle Morty... perhaps especially your Uncle Morty.
I wish I could convince this group that sarcasm isn't truth. It's not even entirely healthy - it's as dangerous as naiveté and certainly more destructive.
The big problem here always is signal-to-noise, and the weenies who stopped doing "FP!" now contribute with their idea of wit. But often "witless" comes closer to the truth, in every sense of the word. Will it spark some kind of discussion? 'Prolly not - I'll just get flamed out the wazoo for saying it. Whoops, there goes my lousy 2 karma points.
It's easier to jabber on, brain in check, no matter what you believe. Blind faith in the worst makes you no smarter, no wiser and no productive than blindly believing in the positive.
Got a gripe? Listen, think, act - how hard is it? DO something about it. Heathly scepticism is a good thing, as long as it's combined with an inquisitive mind.
Talk is cheap - even more so nowadays.
I rediscovered this guide today after many years and had a good laugh when I ran into a few of the propaganda techniques after lunch.
After 15-30 minutes reading this guide, you'll be amused if you practice it on:
1. Fox News Channel (easy place to start for beginners--you can sometimes detect 5 different techniques within a few minutes)
2. Slashdot Posts (if you're into picking apart someone's flawed argument, you'll become a pro)
3. CNN Crossfire (watch 2 pros battle each other using these techniques)
IMHO, they should teach this (bullshit detection) in high school and assign homework to find specific examples of common propaganda techniques in advertising, news media, etc. Can you detect which one(s), if any, I'm using in this post?
Index of 10 common techniques
Word games
....Name-calling
....Glittering generalities
....Euphemisms
False connections
....Transfer
....Testimonial
Special Appeals
....Plain Folks
....Bandwagon
....Fear
Logical fallacies
....Bad Logic or propaganda?
....Unwarranted extrapolation
Source: http://www.propagandacritic.com/
When I recently reread Farhenheit 451, I caught a detail that I never paid attention to before. The firemen did not start burning books because the government wanted to eliminate them. The people demanded that thought-provoking, controversial and therefore disruptive works be destroyed. For any book, you could find some group who was bothered by it, so all books came under the kerosene.
I see aspects of a sort of reverse-Orwellian society today. Varied viewpoints and honest criticism may be available, but most people don't want to hear them, any more than Bradbury's society wanted their books. Given the choice between the happy myth and reality, people will choose the myth. How many Americans care about the truth of Iraqi WMD's, the Lynch "rescue", or whether Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks? Or that fuel cells are not an energy source? Far too few for my comfort.
This is worse than 1984, which envisions domination under an authoritarian government (as I remember; it has been a while). You don't have to beat down the people. Just tell the people the lies they want to hear, and they will do the rest. Whatever contradicts what people already want to believe will be ignored.
This is something fascinating about information access and the internet. The net does not serve to widely disseminate information, except in the most literal geographic sense. Instead, it allows people to form communities with others who already share the same opinions. Memes bounce around in a mostly closed community, building up power and credibility.
I can think of one concrete example. I received a forwarded email in 2000 of stupid statements allegedly made by Al Gore. I replied with an email from 1992 with the same set of quotes, but attributed to Dan Quayle. Did the original sender feel humiliated and send an apologetic retraction to everyone he had forwarded the message to? Of course not. The truth was easily available, but they liked the lie better.