Tim Berners-Lee, creator of The World Wide Web, is voicing some serious concerns; about the Internet’s inability to seperate real science from rumours. He mentions last weeks rumour, that when the switch was flicked on the Large Hadron Collider (LCH) experiment, it might create a black hole and end the world.
It got me thinking about the problem we have online, of being able to identify information from misinformation or blatant lies!
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People you trust?
For a start, we have the assholes who deliberately write fake reviews for any piece of crap, in exchange for money. They call this ‘pay to post‘ – but it is simply another word for bribery. Until blatantly telling the world via this blog that I will name and shame anyone who asks me to review their stuff for cash – I was getting around half a dozen ‘pay to post’ offers a week! It is a really big problem!
By the way, it’s NOT just the small time bloggers like me who get offered these bribes. I have been informed by a number of sources that many of the reviews done on ‘A’ list websites and in top podcasts, are done exclusively for money! That software or gadget they told you was great, could just as well be a hunk of shit – you have been warned!
I was reading a thread on Robert Scobles blog last week, where someone using an anonymous name and no checkable details, accused Scoble of not understanding how marketing works! You don’t have to be a fan of Scoble to accept he is a very influential player online, and that he commands the attention of tens of thousands of people with everything he does – sometimes hundreds of thousands of people.
This insane attack on Scoble’s marketing knowledge, made me realise how easy it was for anyone to grab the attention of large groups of people online, and spread misinformation. For example, what if I was new to the ‘net, didn’t know who Scoble was, and used the wholly incorrect ideas spouted by the anonymous commenter in his blog? I would have just made a major mistake!
What if the anonymous poster to Scoble’s blog, DID have a website that was professionally designed and he spouted the same crap – how many people ‘might’ be taken in?
The point I am making, is that we all have to be selective regarding who we trust to give us our information.
Is there a way to verify the quality of information we receive, regarding product / software / service reviews? What about the sometimes life threatening bad information regarding how to treat medical conditions?
I am not saying I have the answers, but I would like to at least ask the question and see if someone brighter than me can offer some workable suggestions.
