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Berners-Lee Wants Truth Ratings For Websites

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-lie dept.

holy_calamity writes "While introducing the new World Wide Web Foundation Tim Berners-Lee made also asked for a system of ratings to help people distinguish truth and untruth online. 'On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly,' he said, saying that 'there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources.'"

17 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. I can get you ratings readily enough... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... but for Facts, not Truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

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    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. And Then What? by Alex+Pennace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is to prevent any such proposed system from becoming yet another popularity contest plagued by those who want to quash unpopular ideas?

    1. Re:And Then What? by Nasajin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely nothing. The system is exactly a popularity contest, where truth is determined democratically, rather than by actual relationship to reality.

    2. Re:And Then What? by SimonGhent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Im curious as to how sites that discuss UFO and/or paranormal phenomena will be rated.

      How about religion: Christianity, Islam, Scientology?

      How about acupuncture or homeopathy?

      Or to be really contentious how about OS feature debates?

      We're talking about a grey area that has little to no concrete evidence for or against. How do you judge truth in this sites except by personal opinion?

      Quite!

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      simon
    3. Re:And Then What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And that, my friends, is the exact problem with Web 2.0 (for lack of a better term). Allow "democratic" control of content, and all content eventually converges on boobs and beer, because it is the lowest common denominator for a lot of Internet users. I need only cite digg.com for this point.

  3. Where's the "goodluckwiththat" tag by xgr3gx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds like an exercise in futility

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    Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
  4. A rating system can't overcome stupidity by nysus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's really needed is a society where a majority of the individuals have a world class education. No rating system will ever work until you get that in place.

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    ---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.

    1. Re:A rating system can't overcome stupidity by Sobrique · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The best argument against any democratic system is a 5 minute conversation with the 'average voter'. This seems little different in that regard.

    2. Re:A rating system can't overcome stupidity by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's really needed is a society where a majority of the individuals have a world class education. No rating system will ever work until you get that in place.

      What makes you think that a world-class education will cause people to set aside their own prejudices on any subject? Educated people still make bone-headed analyses whenever their own ox would be gored by the "truth".

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      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  5. Re:I can get you ratings readily enough... by spiffyman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    TFA is /.ed, and MirrorDot's not behaving, so this is a shot in the dark. But I'm reasonably sure we've heard something like this before, and the idea is just as bad now as it was. Berners-Lee is smart enough to know that all systemic rating scales are subject to being gamed. I fail to see how embedding such a scale in the protocol would help, and it's not unlikely that it would hurt the situation.

    Moreover, the WWW as he created it - being a very dumb platform - allows us to implement such a scale at a high level, using user input and so forth.There are already a ton of services that do something very like this. Hell, I can trust the top 10 things on del.icio.us more than I can trust random Google results.

    I donno. I just fail to see the point of this. Yeah, people's capacity to care about facts and details appears to be limited, but I don't think this is the solution.

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    So you can laugh all you want to...
  6. Re:Just what we need... by cthulu_mt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "What is Truth?" Asked Pontius Pilate as he washed his hands...

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    Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
  7. Re:Fancy way of saying PageRank doesn't work... by Nathanbp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The onion is far more accurate than your average editorial page.

    Perhaps, but it is a rather bad reference on actual onions.

  8. Re:But truthiness is more important! by Hyppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can someone out there DDoS the fuck out of it while they're at it?

    Why? It's not like it's a danger. It's just information contrary to normal belief. I may not agree with it, but I don't think that it's worthy of FPMITA prison.

  9. Re:Just what we need... by Notquitecajun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not like there was anything in there before NCLB was implemented, either. It was a bad lefty (Ted Kennedy) writing a sort-of decent idea for academic standards by a semi-conservative (Bush), implemented all wrong.

  10. Re:This article is not true. by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except of course that in the Dark Ages they did not burn Witches (most were hung) and they were not as many as people think (only a few thousand over 150 years) and many where not old and not women, and the Church were against the practice ...

    So in the Not very Dark ages not very many witches (of all ages and genders) were not burnt, and not by the church ...

    This is the problem with truth : Everything most people know to be true is wrong

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    Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  11. Re:Just what we need... by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Should "wassup" find itself in the dictionary, how will we sort the uneducated from the educated?

    Considering that usage of a popular term has no relationship to the level of education that person has, you're facing that problem already. You're just going to have to find less shallow ways of judging people.

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    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  12. Re:I can get you ratings readily enough... by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The important thing berners-lee is missing is that cults rely on restriction of information to thrive, not the ready availability of it. Fair enough - cults find a wider audience through the web, but so does all the anti-cult information that exposes their various scams.

    I mean, look at Scientology - thanks to the web, a lot more people know what Scientology is nowadays, and why it is a scam. So when they are walking past a "free stress test" stand they are less likely to get sucked in.

    Problems created by misinformation are solved by education, not censorship.

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