The Disinformation Super Highway

Anyone who has been on these forums long enough has seen the following happen.

Member_A: You are so wrong! Do you have links to back that up?
Member_B: Yes I have. www.saddam_eats_babies.net
Member_A: What!?! Do you have any non-biased links?
Member_C: Well it says here in www.I_hate_tulipwalkers.org......
Member_A: That right wing nut job site!?!
BigTroll_1: You are all stupid. Look at me!
Member_D: Here are some links from the India Daily site....
Everybody: SHUT UP!!!!

Flame war ensues.....

In an age where we have worlds of information at our fingertips, who can we trust??

Pick a topic, any topic. With very little research I could find links that both support and oppose that topic. Each one quoting it's own facts and figures, that for some reason are directly opposite to the facts and figures of the other.

Rather than debate the topic at hand using common sense, interesting topics tend to spiral off into the validity of sites and the opinions of members based on those sites. The original topic is often lost in a haze of flaming and niggling point vs. counter-point discussions.

What happens when your life depends on information off the Internet? What if you are living in the path of a disaster and you need information?

How can we trust anything　we read on the Internet!?!?

Some quotes(slightly paraphrased)!!!:
"Experience is Knowledge. Everything else is information."
-Albert Einstein.
"Believe only what you see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears."
-Gnostic teachings.
"It's all BS! You could dig through layers of BS and all you will find is more BS. So you pick the layer of BS you like most and that is where you stay."
-Dustin Hoffman's character in "Hero".

Originally posted by howmuchisthedoggy

What happens when your life depends on information off the Internet?
Don't ever let it.

What if you are living in the path of a disaster and you need information?
Use authorized Civil Emergency Channels. Anyway, weather reports can be not much better than 50/50.

How can we trust anything　we read on the Internet!?!?
By knowledge of the Publisher and its ownership, or the specific expert who is quoting and his or her background.

You are quite right. Not everyone who is functionally literate has good media analysis or disinformation filters.

It helps little to be ruled by a government that fabricates and selects intelligence to fit its particular cause instead of making rational decisions (eg about foreign policy) based on well-established facts.

Some of these things are transient. We will not always have governments of this nature. But we will always need to discern the plausible from the deliberately misleading.

Good luck!