Telling The Truth On The Internet
When I was a small child the following was pounded into my head by hearing it repeated too many times, although it is a maxim I still follow. “Believe only half of what you read and nothing of what you hear.” Of course this was back when it was considered very bad form to type a letter. After all, this modern device was for convenience, not polite correspondence.
In this day it seems to me the maxim is still applicable, however, when it comes to the Internet. Videos can be edited, as observed following the Jon Stewart/Chris Wallace Fox incident Sunday. It is vital to always check one’s sources with others, and preferably those that are known for their accuracy. Wikipedia is not a good source for information, for instance, because anyone can post information, correct or not, on it. This is a subject that is pretty current in our family since one of our daughters was maligned in an article on the Internet twisting a quote made by her and reported in The New York Times immediately after the Gabby Gifford’s horror in Tucson. She has been receiving e-mails from people who want to know why she doesn’t support Obama and wants to impeach him. She doesn’t want to do anything of the kind.
I have no intention of adding the blog where the misinformation is contained since I do not want to perpetuate a lie, but it is a fairly well known right-wing blog. In fact, I got suckered into being on a radio interview sometime back with a Tea Partier type who kept quoting it.
It is my opinion, correct or not, that this total lack of integrity on the part of some in our society really surfaced as an acceptable form of communication, for them, after Ronald Reagan’s infamous comment: “Facts are stupid things”.
Perhaps we should go back to the old, “Liar, liar, pants on fire” when we catch someone on the Internet intentionally lying.
No comments:
Post a Comment