{"id":1491,"date":"2011-09-30T14:20:17","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T14:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2014-06-27T16:18:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T15:18:19","slug":"truth-lies-and-the-internet-some-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=1491","title":{"rendered":"TRUTH, LIES AND THE INTERNET: SOME THOUGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Truth_lies_Demos_web.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1492\" title=\"Truth_lies_Demos_web\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Truth_lies_Demos_web.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Truth_lies_Demos_web.jpg 250w, http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Truth_lies_Demos_web-211x300.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>Demos yesterday published a new report \u201cTruth, lies and the internet: A report into young people\u2019s digital fluency\u201d by Jamie Bartlett &amp; Carl Miller. While it contains a number of points that can&#8217;t, reasonably, be disagreed with, it&#8217;s one of those reports about the &#8220;internet&#8221; that lacks a proper historical and social context, drawing parallels with history but then assuming that because the internet is &#8220;new&#8221; it&#8217;s challenges are some how <em>sui generis<\/em>. It bugged me enough to pen a fairly lengthy response&#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Bartlett &amp; Miller start with a reasonable premise \u2013 that the internet is making vast new amounts of information available. They\u2019ve done research that demonstrates that access to this information is having an impact on the way young people do their school work.<\/p>\n<p>The internet is a force for good, the authors concede \u2013 widening access, empowering individuals, uniting people across vast distances \u2013 but it also has a \u201cdark side\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0\u201cthere is a loudening<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn1\">[i]<\/a> chorus of voices raising the alarm&#8230; Most of these concerns relate to young people, such as the wide availability of pornography, cyber-bullying, internet privacy, and online stalkers and groomers. Some writers have pointed to the possible long-term detrimental health effects of online stimulation, such as \u2018techno-stress\u2019, \u2018information fatigue syndrome\u2019, \u2018cognitive overload\u2019, and \u2018time famine\u2019&#8230; worries that the internet has made our thinking shallower and less reflective&#8230; that the brain\u2019s \u2018neuroplasticity\u2019 &#8230; is adapting to the \u2018wow and yuck\u2019 sensationalism of the digital world, resulting in short attention spans, an inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity.\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn2\">[ii]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So far, so familiar. The arguments that the internet is dumbing society down are well rehearsed. Bartlett &amp; Miller concede that conservatives have had the same concerns about new communications technologies all the way back to Plato\u2019s condemnation of letters<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn3\">[iii]<\/a> \u00a0and that these concerns fade when society and technology reach an accommodation. But then they make the same mistake as so many commentators on new technologies &#8211; they assume that \u201cthis time it\u2019s different\u201d and that this moral panic is justified.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s more or less where things start to go pear-shaped in this analysis. \u00a0Because, according to the authors, the internet is uniquely responsible for the easy spread of\u00a0 \u201cmisinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories\u201d \u00a0and \u201cits future is staked on how easily and effectively information and disinformation can be disentangled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now I\u2019m not going to argue that the internet isn\u2019t a rich source of nonsense \u2013 from harmless pranks designed to catch out the credulous to spam, scams, schemes and scurrilous lies \u2013 but my problem with this report is that it assumes that the internet is somehow unique. Bartlett and Miller concede that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThere is nothing new in the challenge of sorting the wheat from the chaff&#8230; Simply put, whether offline or online, we need to distinguish good from bad information and that requires the application of both personal techniques and skills that allow one to make a careful, reasoned judgment.\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn4\">[iv]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>An excellent, accurate, point \u2013 but why apply it here only to the internet? Because, the authors contend, the internet,\u00a0 has unique features that make it especially dangerous.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No gatekeepers \u2013 there are no editors, no peer-review, no one posing \u201ccertain tests of veracity and authenticity that needed to be passed before the content is permitted into the public sphere\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn5\">[v]<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The pedigree problem \u2013 much information on the internet is anonymous, we can\u2019t tell who provided it therefore we can\u2019t judge what its worth.<\/li>\n<li>Adults can\u2019t cope with the internet and therefore can\u2019t supervise their children.<\/li>\n<li>Pseudo-sites and propaganda \u2013 people are using the internet to spread pernicious ideas (attacking Martin Luther King, denying the holocaust&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>The picture always lies \u2013 not only are people lying on the internet, they\u2019re making it look nice!<\/li>\n<li>Group reinforcement \u2013 the internet is \u201cBalkanised\u201d, people only communicating with those who share their interests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again this isn&#8217;t a new analysis and these are familiar arguments but, since they form the basis of Barlett &amp; Miller&#8217;s contention that &#8220;something needs to be done&#8221; it\u2019s worth considering them for a moment. The internet might be short of officially appointed gatekeepers but those past gatekeepers weren\u2019t always benign \u2013 we should be glad that the days when censors (whether governmental or institutional) could control debates and shut down dissenting voices. The history of science is littered with radical discoveries that were suppressed or ignored for years or decades because the entrenched view was privileged by gatekeepers who resisted the evidence of change. And political censorship remains a real threat to freedom. We should welcome the fact that, increasingly, we live in a society where fact and opinion can be judged on their own merit, not because of the prestige of the author. Yes it\u2019s true that the internet allows access to propaganda \u2013 some of it hateful \u2013 and that it can make distasteful opinions look superficially glossy and appealing but those opinions were always out there. Are they more-or-less hateful because they are rendered in HTML5 rather than passed around in grubby, photocopied pamphlets?<\/p>\n<p>Holocaust denial is vile. But just as the internet makes it easier for Holocaust deniers to spread their lies, it makes it easier for those who recognise the truth to make available the overwhelming evidence that supports the historical facts.<\/p>\n<p>As for adults not being able to cope with the internet, well that\u2019s a quirk of our moment in history not a systemic issue with the internet. The internet is approaching the point where it will have a second generation of users who have grown up taking access more-or-less for granted. I\u2019ve been online at home since around 1994 \u2013 that\u2019s seventeen years \u2013 I first used a network connected computer about a decade before that. It won\u2019t be long until the generation of children who have grown up accepting the \u201cinformation superhighway\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn6\">[vi]<\/a> as a fact of everyday life are bringing up their own families and perhaps then this nonsense about a generational digital divide can be put to bed for good. But, until then, there\u2019s nothing mystical about the technologies children are using and nothing that would prevent members of an older generation understanding them with the enough effort. Nor is supervision of what children do and see on the internet qualitatively different from supervision of what children see on television or film or read in books. It requires effort, that\u2019s true, but parents who allow children to read on their own, listen to music via headphones or put televisions, games consoles and DVD players in their children\u2019s bedrooms are opening up unregulated conduits to information that may be age-inappropriate. Any technology has the potential for abuse, all technologies require parents to strike a balance between the benefits of access and the potential for children to be exposed to inappropriate material.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, though, I will agree with Bartlett &amp; Miller on the dangers of the internet strengthening some small group identities \u2013 and of possibly creating feedback that can make these groups intolerant of alternative view points and tending to favour extreme interpretations of facts and events. Anyone with serious experience of online discussion will be anecdotally familiar with such behaviour and there\u2019s good research<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn7\">[vii]<\/a> that\u2019s identified how and why this happens.<\/p>\n<p>But small groups turning inwards, enforcing rigid dogma, suspicious of alternative ways of thinking or living \u2013 these are not unique features of the internet. In small towns and villages and in traditional families all across the world, this is how order is enforced. For those who want to break away from such narrow, controlling groups the past only allowed physical escape to the cosmopolitanism of big cities. The internet is nothing if not cosmopolitan. There will always be those who seek only the reinforcement of their existing prejudices just as there will always be those who only want to broaden their horizons (and the rest of us who sit somewhere in the middle \u2013 balancing both urges in differing proportion). The internet enables the expression of both desires.<\/p>\n<p>Bartlett &amp; Miller can\u2019t have it both ways \u2013 they can\u2019t complain that the internet allows access to too much information and then grumble because people don\u2019t immerse themselves in it as much as they&#8217;d wish.<\/p>\n<p><em>[There\u2019s a danger of this review becoming longer than Demos\u2019s pamphlet \u2013 so let me skip to the conclusion&#8230;]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The answer to these problems, Bartlett &amp; Miller claim, is the promotion of digital literacy and, in particular, digital fluency<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u201cthe ability to find and critically evaluate online information. This requires a combination of new and old techniques: a mix of the classic tropes of any discerning historian or journalist with some very specific knowledge about how the internet functions.\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn8\">[viii]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We need to teach children to be \u201cnet-savvy\u201d \u2013 understanding elements of how the internet works \u2013 to hone their critical faculties and to encourage them to access diverse sources of information.<\/p>\n<p>Now I don\u2019t disagree with any of this.<\/p>\n<p>We should be teaching children to understand the way the internet work. They should know that, for example, Google and Bing are not value-free providers of information and that there\u2019s a whole industry devoted to distorting search results in favour of particular providers. Children should be able to balance online information, weigh its worth and understand why some sources are trustworthy and some are not. And, yes, children should be encouraged to read widely.<\/p>\n<p>But why are these issues only couched in terms of \u201cdigital\u201d media.<\/p>\n<p>Children shouldn\u2019t just be educated about the shortcomings of the internet as a medium \u2013 they should be taught about the way all media apply filters to information and the way form can distort meaning. Newspapers, driven by advertising and brutal competition, leap from crisis to crisis \u2013 creating drama and focusing on short-term sensation rather than long-term systemic problems and they have a tendency to seek avoid challenging the prejudices of core groups of readers they can\u2019t afford to alienate. Television news, in the 24 hour broadcast era, has shifted away from analysis to a focus on eye-candy and on packaged news often sponsored by corporate interests. Academic publishing is controlled by a small number of publishers seeking to control access to maximise profit.<\/p>\n<p>We need to encourage young (and old) minds to understand the processes behind the construction of all the information they receive, however it is packaged.<\/p>\n<p>We should promote the development of critical faculties of children in all areas, not just in assessing the accuracy of online information. We live in a nation that is dangerously statistically illiterate \u2013 where risks are often misrepresented and misunderstood \u2013 and where pseudo-science flourishes. In a world where anti-science is on the rise, where climate-deniers and evolution-deniers, homeopaths and spiritualists, bull-shitters and snake-oil salesmen circle like vultures above waiting for the opportunity to fall upon the weak, we need to give citizens the tools to understand when information &#8211; whatever its source &#8211; is worth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u201cResearch has revealed information quality does not appear to be of significance to many digital natives, but that decisions about information quality is based on site design, rather than more accurate checks.\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn9\">[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This may be true \u2013 but, again, it is hardly a unique to the internet. Any fraudster knows the benefits of a convincing letterhead and a flashy business card.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, of course it would be best if children could be encouraged to access a wide variety of resources \u2013 not just to pick those that are most neatly aligned with their existing prejudices. But, again, the Demos report can\u2019t have it both ways. It can\u2019t complain that the internet risks overwhelming children with too much information and then complain that they are too rigidly filtering that information tsunami.<\/p>\n<p>And, whereas in the past the student, teacher or parent seeking to challenge narrow viewpoints had limited access to information \u2013 especially where they were seeking to challenge their community&#8217;s accepted orthodoxy \u2013 the internet provides the opportunity to access almost an infinite array of dissenting and contrary opinions. Far more than a small school or branch library.<\/p>\n<p>So, yes, by all means let\u2019s teach our children to understand where the information they\u2019re reading comes from, give them tools to assess its worth and encourage them to challenge the prejudices with which they are brought up.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s not pretend that these issues are somehow uniquely important to the digital media.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.demos.co.uk\/publications\/truth-lies-and-the-internet\">The Demos report can be downloaded from here and freely distributed<\/a> (but, it would be nice, Demos if when creating your reports in PDF you made it easy for people to cut and paste your text by not rendering the fonts in a way that makes it impossible to cut&amp;paste &#8211; if you&#8217;re going to tell people you know about the internet&#8230;)<\/p>\n<div><br clear=\"all\" \/><\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\" \/>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref1\">[i]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cloudening\u201d \u2013 really? The Oxford commas I can forgive, just, but \u201cloudening\u201d? I louden, you louden, she loudens, we louden? Pedantic? Me? No doubt my respone is entirely without error! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref2\">[ii]<\/a> Page 10&amp;11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref3\">[iii]<\/a> And probably before \u2013 I\u2019ve no doubt that Bog turned to Bag, as he chiselled out the first crude representations of the number of cows he owned, and complained that in the good old days people used to be able to remember all this stuff without fancy new technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref4\">[iv]<\/a> Page 13<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref5\">[v]<\/a> Page 14<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref6\">[vi]<\/a> Remember when we used to call it that? I remember when it was all green fields and Compuserve around here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref7\">[vii]<\/a> Somewhere on my bookcase, can\u2019t be arsed to look. Cass Sunstein\u2019s work gets a reference on Page 24 of this report \u2013 I remember <em>Republic.com<\/em> making some good points.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref8\">[viii]<\/a> Page 19<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref9\">[ix]<\/a> Page 20<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Demos yesterday published a new report \u201cTruth, lies and the internet: A report into young people\u2019s digital fluency\u201d by Jamie Bartlett &amp; Carl Miller. While it contains a number of points that can&#8217;t, reasonably, be disagreed with, it&#8217;s one of those reports about the &#8220;internet&#8221; that lacks a proper historical and social context, drawing parallels [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[25],"tags":[40,38,133,39],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Truth_lies_Demos_web.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27AP7-o3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1548,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}