Let's jump right in with a question. Do you believe you can place your faith in everything you come across on the internet?
Suppose a post surfaces on LiveJournal about some occurrence. Can we rely on this article? Or should we consider the internet as a totally unreliable source?
Nowadays, it's not uncommon to think of the internet as a digital swamp, and obtaining info from it is viewed with disdain. The rationale of those who disapprove of the internet is quite straightforward. Anyone can post anything online while remaining anonymous. It costs nothing to publish any piece of data online within minutes. And finally, there are no restrictions on posting content remotely. For instance, you can defame the mayor of a major city without even setting foot in Russia.
It would seem that these three qualities of the internet—concealment of identity, remote access, and effortless posting—clearly indicate a lack of trustworthiness. Meaning, the internet is unreliable.
So?
Nope, that's not the case. And I’m about to tell you precisely why you should, conversely, have faith in what you read online. And you should trust it to a greater extent than, say, broadcast television.
To begin, let’s consider the actual content shown on our boob tube. Take Gennady Malakhov, for example, the advocate of urine therapy. Is he on TV? Indeed. He presents a health-focused show. Malakhov suggests that viewers treat ailments using kerosene, eggshells, and other antiquated methods that, to say the least, aren’t beneficial for your well-being.
In addition, there is a TV program entitled “Federal Judge,” along with numerous similar shows that are supposed to depict our Russian judicial system. The question is, do these programs share any resemblance with reality?
The answer is self-evident to anyone who has observed criminal cases, even from afar. These shows are nothing like reality. As proof, I can point to simple data. The acquittal rate in actual Russian criminal cases is below one percent. To put it plainly, nearly ninety-nine out of every hundred individuals are found guilty.
Obviously, we don’t witness anything like this on TV. There, people are acquitted constantly. Nonetheless, such a program is aired on our television networks, and many viewers are honestly convinced that a real trial is pretty similar to what they see.
And finally, another strikingly illustrative example: Academician Petrik. Academician Petrik aggressively promoted his nanofilters across different media platforms. However, genuine testing revealed that his filters don’t purify water. And, moreover, under some conditions, they can even contaminate the water.
Let me recap. Television and other media outlets, to put it gently, don’t thoroughly verify the information they disseminate. This data should not be trusted under any conditions.
Now, as a point of comparison, let’s consider the reliability of information on the very internet that some prominent public figures refer to as nothing short of a “cesspool” and a “dumping ground for those who are mentally unwell.”
There is this woman, Natalya Kolesnikova. Last year, she published something pretty peculiar on her blog. She was driving along the M4 highway and witnessed a terrible traffic accident. Severed limbs, fractured legs, blood everywhere… Paramedics who only agreed to help for a bribe. In short, the internet, as expected, went wild.
What is the aftermath when similar tales are broadcast on television? Well, nothing much transpires. People observe, are disturbed, talk about it, and then… forget it.
What unfolded online? People commenced digging and discovered that no such accident occurred on the M4 highway, that the hospital the girl mentioned doesn’t exist, and that the entire narrative, from beginning to end, was a fabrication.
As we can observe, even in a digital swamp, an obvious fabrication didn’t succeed.
Another instance. Just recently, a certain enthusiastic schoolboy, Denis Popov, cheerfully declared that he had created his own operating system. What’s more, officials, thrilled that Russia finally possesses its own operating system, even allocated financial resources to this student and even pressured some unfortunate school principals to install it.
How did the Internet respond to this?
The internet reacted in a predictable manner. The “new” operating system was examined and found to be simply a standard Ubuntu, with slight alterations. Essentially, the student hadn’t coded anything himself but simply eliminated someone else’s copyright notices and presented the established operating system as his own creation.
Once again: the deception was unsuccessful.
I believe that's enough examples. I’ll now progress to the theoretical component. Why should you place trust in what you read on the internet? For a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the internet is widespread. Regardless of the latest headline news story, there will undoubtedly be an expert or eyewitness who can provide trustworthy, firsthand details regarding the event.
For instance, in the case of the incident on the M4 highway, there were traffic officers who reviewed the daily traffic logs and reported that no major accidents occurred during the specified time frame. When similar misinformation is supplied on television, there are, naturally, obvious experts, but… they remain silent at home.
This is because there is no feedback mechanism on television. You can yell at the television, you can unplug it… no one will even notice. In essence, you can lie into the camera as much as you wish, and no one will correct you.
On the internet, as soon as you begin to mislead, an expert or eyewitness will immediately emerge in the comments to set you straight.
Furthermore, multiple minds are better than one. It’s even more beneficial when you have not two, but two thousand or even twenty thousand. Every occasion you express something significant or sensational on television, all those minds operate independently. However, should you happen to state something online, those minds commence thinking together.
And should there be any inconsistency, contradiction, weak spot, or ambiguity in your words, rest assured that this aspect will unquestionably be highlighted to you via the internet.
Simply stated, you cannot deceive everyone. A few percent of your audience will inevitably expose some falsehood or contradiction.
Therefore, regarding traditional media, no one really cares about those few percent. They are insignificant. But online, those few percent also have a voice. And there’s no method to silence them.
Allow me to summarize now.
You can’t lie online without consequences. You’ll be exposed. Therefore, data shared on the internet should undeniably be trusted to a significantly greater degree than data shared in other mediums. Fortunately, data shared online undergoes mandatory verification by numerous web users.
