The Net as disinformation vehicle
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee says he’s increasingly worried about the way in which the Net is used to spread disinformation.
Talking to the BBC when the Large Hadron Collider was turned on for the first time, he said the web was used to, “spread fears that flicking the switch on the LHC could create a Black Hole that could swallow up the Earth particularly concerned him,” says the story.
“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,” story has him saying. “A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging.”
Berners-Lee and colleagues at the World Wide Web consortium, “had looked at simple ways of branding websites - but concluded that a whole variety of different mechanisms was needed,” says the BBC.
“I’m not a fan of giving a website a simple number like an IQ rating because like people they can vary in all kinds of different ways,” he says in the story. “So I’d be interested in different organisations labelling websites in different ways”.
He was interviewed as part of the launch of his World Wide Web Foundation which aims to improve the web’s accessibility.
Alongside this role it will aim to make it easier for people to get online,”, says the story, adding:
“The Web Foundation will also explore ways to make the web more mobile-phone friendly. That would increase its use in Africa and other poor parts of the world where there are few computers but plenty of handsets.
“The Foundation will also look at how the benefits of the web can be taken to those who cannot read or write.”
BBC - Warning sounded on web’s future, September 15, 2008
turned on - CERN Collidatron — ‘It’s alive!’, September 12, 2008
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September 16th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
CENSORSHIP
plain and simple this noob needs ot be packed up and sent to china where his communist ideals and plutocratic favors can be apreciated
in the free world we can tell when information is crap.
you sir FAIL
September 17th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Concerned Citizen: You have it wrong. The only thing this would be would be those badges you see on random websites like “Certified Free of Viruses”. It’d be self-censorship in a way. It would also be like carbon credits in that the businesses that come out will be based on a non-gold and non-fiat monetary system.
Berners-Lee here understands the economics of the internet as being information. Disinformation is the fiat equivalent to the destructive line-of-credit, and thus he wants Equifax (credit reports are done here, along with two other companies) type companies created. It’s all based on trust which the internet is currently made of. It’s only a difference from trust of each site to trust of the reporters. Now, the idea only differs in that websites are considered, and not just people. In the real world, corporations are false-people, and all people and corporations get these ratings.
The system sort of works already. There are four economic fields with it already.
1. FDA Approved [A company so popular for saying this is certified was created, and the FDA was created destroying it. We need to avoid Gov't related situations like this]
2. Credit Rating & Credit Itself
3. Carbon Credits
4. Certified Safe buttons on websites [and that McAfee site advisor *hint hint*] for bad code.