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Rumor Mills
Feb. 2nd, 2004 02:17 pmA couple of years ago, people were really starting to hype the power of the Internet as a populist medium for the distribution of information. In the last week or two, however, I've started to wonder how much it's a force for good and how much a force for evil.
Last week I was amazed by how fast the Dean-privacy story wooshed through LJ, jumping from friends' list to friends list. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a collection of only almost truths that appears to have been maleovolently spread.
Today I again saw the telephone game in action, creating information that was just as incorrect as the Dean story last week even though there was no maleovolent seed. Site #1 published an unreleased supplement for an old game. Site #2 linked in to Site #1, but also went to the game's original publisher, incorrectly read an old press release from the publisher, and thus stated the game would be reprinted this June (apparently based on the fact that they'd made an announcement _last_ June that they were planning a reprint at some point). Site #3 then linked to Site #1 and Site #2 and stated the new reprint date as an absolute fact and even put it in their upcoming releases section.
Sigh.
It all reminds me, in addition, of the increasingly problems that the Survivor sites online are facing. Since Survivor #5 (Marquesas) or #6 (The Amazon) an increasing amount of spoiler information on Survivor seasons has been leaking to the 'net, with the result being that big chunks of the show are being spoiled beforehand. People who don't want spoiler info (like me) are finding that the communities that we can access are growing smaller and smaller in number because so many are contaminated. And the good and bad information mixes so freely that it's become impossible to know what to trust and what not to.
Is this a preview of the future for the Internet, where all information becomes useless, because there's so much of it, and much is maliciously untrustworthy or else just the result of good intentions gone bad?
Last week I was amazed by how fast the Dean-privacy story wooshed through LJ, jumping from friends' list to friends list. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a collection of only almost truths that appears to have been maleovolently spread.
Today I again saw the telephone game in action, creating information that was just as incorrect as the Dean story last week even though there was no maleovolent seed. Site #1 published an unreleased supplement for an old game. Site #2 linked in to Site #1, but also went to the game's original publisher, incorrectly read an old press release from the publisher, and thus stated the game would be reprinted this June (apparently based on the fact that they'd made an announcement _last_ June that they were planning a reprint at some point). Site #3 then linked to Site #1 and Site #2 and stated the new reprint date as an absolute fact and even put it in their upcoming releases section.
Sigh.
It all reminds me, in addition, of the increasingly problems that the Survivor sites online are facing. Since Survivor #5 (Marquesas) or #6 (The Amazon) an increasing amount of spoiler information on Survivor seasons has been leaking to the 'net, with the result being that big chunks of the show are being spoiled beforehand. People who don't want spoiler info (like me) are finding that the communities that we can access are growing smaller and smaller in number because so many are contaminated. And the good and bad information mixes so freely that it's become impossible to know what to trust and what not to.
Is this a preview of the future for the Internet, where all information becomes useless, because there's so much of it, and much is maliciously untrustworthy or else just the result of good intentions gone bad?
