Internet is fostering disinformation, says web's creator

Internet is fostering disinformation, says web's creator

www.telegraph.co.uk

The internet risks becoming a platform for cults, rumour and disinformation, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with creating the web.

He said that a new system needed to be put in place that would differentiate between reliable websites that use trusted sources and those that do not.

"On the web, the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable," he told the BBC.

"A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging."

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Does anyone know of any conspiracy web sites? I've been looking for one for a while now.


www.telegraph.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Haha, yeah the cat got out of the bag on them.

He is basically wanting to implement the peer review system, which would crush any originality and non-mainstream information from being easily attainable.

But as long as they don't remove the 'unreliable' websites, and only want to 'rank' them, it isn't as bad.

I can't imagine that kind of thing happening.....

[edit on 15-9-2008 by watcher1960]

Many educational elitist are attacking the freedom of thought associated with the current internet. This guy is just restating Andrew Keen and his book "Cult of the Amateur, ...".

I have problems with people using wiki and youtube as source information for articles. Both these sites are dubious for anything worth a decent research paper or article. They are great for just looking for crap.

As for blogs and opinion pieces, they are just that. People think someone wants or even cares about what they write about and post it on different pages of the internet or in forums such as this. Only educated elitist are concerned with this as they are of the opinion that only their educated opinion is what matters most in any subject and everyone else has no say, hence we are amateurs.

If you really want to learn about the mindset of people such as these; read Andrew Keen's book. It lit me up for about a week with his obnoxious snobbishment and general demeanor towards people. Be warned, it will make you mad as hell to read what these intellectuals want to instill on the populous.

The act of attempting to quantify, even symbolically, the information passing through the medium is a violation of the principle that the communication channels are open.

When you are observing something you don't like or object to, you close your eyes, you don't turn out the light.

No matter how mankind chooses to communicate, there is always someone who feels compelled to control it. What the heck is up with that?

It's true, even within Conspiracy sites there is terrible bs (I come to research the Federal Reserve and I get bombarded with "Reptillians are laying eggs in our brains through electromagnetic scalar pulsai!").

reply to post by hinky


Another piece of popular literature which exemplifies the elite mindset is the notorious "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I hated it (not that THAT matters.)

He's right about the problem, but wrong about the solution.

The internet does help spread disinformation - it also helps spread good information. What is needed to distinguish between the two is not some formalized system, but the open & informed public debate here and at other public fora like this.

Our motto here at ATS is "deny ignorance" which is IMO as good a standard as any to aim for. Certainly we have a public & contentious debate about what the facts are on many contentious issues.

Any formalized system will introduce distortions that favor those who control the formalized system.

Would we want our governments to determine what information is to be considered vetted? Corporate entities? A council of unelected, unaccountable academics?

That's a job for each individual, but then again, it always has been, Internet or not...

As soon as I read this I knew it was CERN not wanting any other opinions but their own about the LHC this is actually a good sign it probably means something has rattled them hopefully the safety committee find the same thing.

There is a lot of garbage out there though it's no Stargate or anything else kinda crazy like that but what it is really is is purely immoral and irresponsible.

And what I say to Sir Tim Berners-Lee is stop being such an elitest arrogant puppet.

[edit on 15-9-2008 by Teknikal]

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reply to post by Jibbs


See this is the type of person who believes that intelligent people don't have the ability to cut through all the paranoid theories and or fallacies to glean some few truths from the net. Let's face it, crackpots will always be with us, and I think the government knows who ye are. They are watching you!

Second, if we or they did start to put a "believable" label on some sites while labeling others as "unbelievable" who is to stop someone in charge from putting a false believable and vice versa. Sometimes smart people can be so obtuse.

The value of the internet is not the validity of the information but the delivery mechanism. People will be able to sort out the information at the destination point, no need to classify it at the source. People that want to classify the source want to control the source, ie, want a fascist top down internet where a few dictate the "nature" of reality to the many. The fact that the internet has broken that model is it's greatest plus imho.

So no, keep my internet as it is now, thank you very much, I can figure out what I believe in myself.

It's not like establishment sources are always right either...