Someone on Wikipedia wants people to think actor Ron Livingston is gay.
Now he’s suing the anonymous Internet editor who keeps changing his page. Looks like someone’s having a case of the Mondays.
This Wiki-bandit is one of many who spread untruths through the Internet. Chain e-mails have been doing the same for years now, and I’ve read several false posts about dead celebrities on social networks.
Oscar Wilde is attributed as saying, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
But the mask of Internet anonymity provides an avenue to disseminate lies. People who don’t know anything can profess to know everything.
I’m not sure that quote is accurate; it shows up on various quotation sites but curiously not on the official Oscar Wilde quotes page.
So how does anybody find truth on the Internet?
An engineer I used to work with told me how to gauge truth with Google search results. If you were to type two competing things into Google, e.g. “water flows uphill” and “water flows downhill,” the more truthful statement will usually have more total results.
Another way is to view the Google PageRank of two pages with competing statements; the one with the higher PageRank is often correct.
When evaluating scholarly articles, look to see if there are footnotes and sources then click on or search for those sources. Do the same for Wikipedia articles.
Make sure what you are reading is not satire. Reputable news sites, often foreign, reposted stories from the satirical newspaper The Onion, mistaking it for actual news. Even if an article is from a reputable news organization, the story may not be genuine.
There are plenty of media watchdog sites, like Media Matters for America and Media Research Center. But should anybody really trust watchdog sites dedicated to exposing “conservative misinformation” and “liberal bias,” respectively?
If you only want to affirm your belief that the media is conspiring against you, those sites will do just fine. But remember that they are reporting based on their own biases. Go check out Media Research Center’s coverage of the CBS “Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman” ad for “How I Met Your Mother.”
The St. Petersburg Times has a Pulitzer Prize-winning site called PolitiFact.com that rates the truth of claims from politicians and chain letters. They even have an “Obameter” section, dedicated to tracking the status of about 500 promises President Barack Obama made during the campaign. Each claim has tons of links to support its conclusion, and users can contact who wrote, edited and researched each post.
Finally, just read more. Don’t just go to one news site. And avoid the Huffington Post and Newsmax sites of the world. Relying on a single source for news does you a disservice. Journalists aren’t supposed to do it, and neither should you.
Chris thanks you for reading and wishes you a happy holiday season.
Reach him at cogino@asu.edu.
