By chance, I arrived to an old and interesting BBC news report (2008), Warning sounded on web’s future, on the worries of Tim Berners-Lee about the spreading of disinformation using the web. Such worries are still totally valid today. The article also touches on other related topics such as extending the reach of the web and improving the web’s usability.
Regarding the problem of publishing insincere or unfounded information on the web, Berners-Lee cited the campaign started because of the activation of the Large Hadron Collider. Specifically, some groups used the web for communicate invalid beliefs about the world being destroyed by effect of the LHC. This use of the web is, in first instance, unethical. Further, it may transmit fears, and additionally, the information posted by such groups has no scientific grounds. This a typical example of misusing a system.
(Photo by toccia). This kind of problem arises because of the web’s intrinsic nature. The web is a different system… a system which is now inevitably linked to the behavior and trends of human society. The web is an open and complex system. It’s open because we can add as much information as we want, and it’s complex because it’s composed of a huge amount of producers and consumers of information, and their interactions. There is other factor that shapes the web complexity: evolution
The web changes at very high rates. The web’s technologies an content change so quickly, that it’s impossible for any person to assimilate all this evolution. After all, the user only wants to open her browser and read the news. Typically, she is interested neither in the technical details behind the publishing platform, nor in the path followed by the information until arriving to the final form on the online media. There is a tool the user recurs to in order to fight complexity: trust.
The user of the web has some expectations about her relationship with information: veracity, reliability, availability and security. However, these expectations are sometimes hard to meet in a system so open and complex such as the web. We are relatively accustomed to reading about privacy and copyright issues on the web. For example, the September 2008 Scientific American is a special issue on The Future of Privacy, loaded with plenty of excellent articles.
Disruption of privacy and copyright certainly undermines trust. Nevertheless, the web has too much power over the whole world. It can modify the behavior of social groups. Our modern dependence on the web makes us very vulnerable to the plots of groups and interested corporations. Therefore, structures for identifying trustworthiness of a site may be desirable. But I believe that the web itself tends to its own well-being. Precisely, its complexity and openness makes it very resilient to attacks and fake information. The web empowers the people and, in turn, is empowered by people. Ultimately, fake data will be identified and disregarded. It’s the same idea behind Wikipedia’s trustworthiness. Finally, there are other interesting challenges identified by Berners-Lee. First, we have to look at extensions of the current web infrastructure in order to improve access to information (easier and broader access). We also have to protect the web of groups or corporations pretending to abuse the web to meet their egoist goals. We have to care for the web because, after all, our future and evolution is inextricably linked to the web’s.
‘trust’ is an utopia
I think that most of the web content is fake and malicious. We spend a lot of time distinguishing between valid and corrupted data. What a loss of resources!