Rogue Thoughts

I just discovered a new report from European commission about social computing,“The impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy”. It states that social computing in the shape of social networking sites, blogs and the like is gaining momentum around the world. In the future it will likely pervade virtually all aspects of our lives.
While the report concludes that social computing could have many benign effects, such as aiding in social integration, health, public service, democratization and a more user centric approach by the industry, there are also the usual concerns about security, privacy, identity theft etc.
What caught my attention, though, was something new:

A lack of critical analysis skills and awareness of the nature and quality of content may lead users not to question information accuracy and reliability: for example, patients could use peer support for
self diagnosis or citizens could be misled by political or commercial opinions.

Being educated as an historian, I have been trained to look for some pretty simple things in assessing the credibility of information. First you need to ascertain the identity of the source of the information, and next the interest and tendency of that source. These things are some times hard to find on the internet. Often you will not know anything about who has written it or what interest that person has. If you do not know the person or the interest in the matter this person has, you cannot assess the tendency of the information. Without this knowledge, you have no real way of assessing the credibility of the information.

But how is this different from the physical world, the critical reader may ask?

Print media will usually have a publisher which is identifiable. This will help you asses the tendency, because you will typically have other information about this publisher. This is not the case on the internet. If I read a blog post, from someone named Randy Newman, I may or may not, find other blog posts that will help me, and they may or may not be written by the same person. Alternatively the source may be a news site with an illustrious name like, wakanakataka.com, where you have no chance to find out whether it is run by neo-nazis, vegan militants or quiet suburbian soccer moms.

So, as far as gauging the credibility of information the score is:
Internet 0 – Physical world 1

If you watch a piece of information on a regular Tv station you will also have an identifiable and known tendency. You will know that a positive coverage of the war against terror “means” something different if it is broadcast on Fox News or Al Jazeera. If you watch a video on youtube, there is not a whole lot to go on. You may or may not have an identifiable name and other videos, but unlike in the physical world, it is free to “make” a new channel, so you don’t have to build a consistent communication to your selected audience. You have no way of determininn the tendency of the youtube clip either.

Internet 0 – Physical world 2

If a friend tells you something in a private conversation you will be face to face with the person. This means that, regardless of the advances of the makeup and wig industry, you will be fairly sure in assessing the identity of the communicator – your friend. You will also be able to rely on facial cues, for example to detect lies (check this link). This is not the case online. On facebook or on email, you have no way to be sure about the identity and therefore the tendency of the communicator.
Internet 0 – Physical world 3

To sum up, the physical world wins when it comes to assessing the credibility of information compared to the internet, simply because there are usually better cues that will help us in identifying the tendency of the communicator. There is usually context that will help us determine the prestige and expertise of the communicator (I have elsewhere written a note about how we evaluate credibility based on the communication context). The internet simply blurs the communication context making it difficult for us to rely on our psychological abilities to determine credibility.

Returning to the report, if we extrapolate this tendency, the future of social computing looks pretty grim. We may be faced with an internet filled with partial truths, uninformed gibberish, idiosyncratic propaganda and malicious lies, and worst of all: we will not be able to distinguish it. Surely not a comforting foundation for a democratic knowledge economy.

I don’t have the answer yet, but I think that educating users of the internet in critical thinking and developing new mechanisms of showing identity is critical in the long run.