Communications of the ACM
Inside risks
E-Epistemology and Misinformation
The problems of online misinformation seem to be worsening due to the growth of the Internet and our ever-increasing dependence on online systems. Information technology is a double-edged swordperhaps even more so than many other technologies. In the hands of enlightened individuals, institutions, and governments, its use can be enormously beneficial. In other hands, it can be detrimental. Unfortunately, the dichotomy is often in the eye of the beholder, perhaps depending on one's objectives (personal financial gains, corporate profits, global economic well-being, privacy, and so forth).
Given a collection of online information, many people behave as if it is inherently authentic and accurate. This myth applies not only to Web sites, but also to many types of special-purpose databases, such as those found in law enforcement, motor vehicle departments, medicine, insurance, Social Security, credit information, and homeland security. We have seen many cases in which misinformation (including false flight data, erroneous medical records, undeleted acquittals, or tampered files) has resulted in very serious consequences.
Although an individual can occasionally observe that personal information about one's self is incorrect, more typically such erroneous information is hidden from the individual in question, possibly in multiple but different inaccurate versions. Overall, it is usually impossible for one to ensure all such instances are correct. Furthermore, it is much more difficult to determine whether or not online information about anything else is authoritative. Worse yet, the volume of questionable information is growing at an extraordinary rate, and attempts to update substantive misinformation often have little effectespecially with the persistence of incorrect cached versions.
We rely increasingly on the Internet for many purposes, including education and enlightenment, irrespective of whether the sources are accurate. Oft-repeated overly simplistic sound-bite mantras seem to be popular. Furthermore, some people seem eager to waste time and energy that could be better spent elsewhereor to drop out entirely. There is a tendency for entrenched positions to remain fixed. Are we losing our ability to listen openly to other views and engage in constructive thought?
Another problem involves the inaccessibility of vital information. We seem to have evolved into a mentality of "If it's not on the Internet, it doesn't exist." Even though there are many more data bytes available today than ever before, search engines typically find fewer than 5% of the Web pages, almost none of the database-driven dynamic Web pages, and very little of what is in most public libraries. Copyright restrictions and proprietary claims further limit what is available. For example, the ACM digital library is accessible only to those ACM members who pay to subscribe. Furthermore, overzealous filtering blocks many authoritative sources of information. Are our educations and information gathering suffering from a lowest-common-denominator process?
The propagation of misinformation has long been a problem in conventional print and broadcast media, but represents another problem exacerbated by the speed and bandwidth of the Internet. In general, widely held beliefs in supposedly valid information tend to take on lives of their own as urban myths; they tend to be trusted far beyond what is reasonable, even in the presence of well-based demonstrations of their invalidity.
In the face of such rampant misinformation, the truth can be difficult to accept, partly because it can be so difficult to ascertain, partly because it can seem so starkly inconsistent with popular misinformation, and partly because people want to believe in simple answers. Thus, we are revisiting classical problems that might now be considered as e-epistemology, involving the nature and fundamentals of online knowledgeespecially with reference to its limits and validity. However, there are some possible remedies, such as epistemic educational processes that teach us how to evaluate information objectively. For Web sites, this might entail examining who are the sponsors, what affiliations are implied, where the information comes from, whether multiple seemingly reinforcing items all stem from the same incorrect source, whether purported Web site security and privacy claims are actually justified, and similar critical thinking.
©2003 ACM 0002-0782/03/0500 $5.00
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