Is The Internet Bad For Truth... Or Is The Truth Bad For Truth? | Techdirt - The Diigo Meta page

• 15 Jan 09
  

  Frank Colcord

  Philosophy Cui bono

• 31 Dec 08
  

  Michael Becker

  It's not that the internet is bad for truth. It's that people have started to realize that the "truth" provided to them from official sources wasn't true at all. The real problem for "the truth" was that the actual truth didn't match up to it. That's not the "fault" of the internet -- it's one of the benefits of the internet.

  truth Internet authority philosophy

  • Over in Forbes, there's a column by Melik Kaylan, where he claims that the internet is "bad for truth" because it presents so many contradictory ideas.
  • But, these days, with so many different and contradictory voices, Kaylan worries that the actual truth just gets blurry and people simply surround themselves with the truth that they want and ignore the "official" truth.

    • 

      Michael Becker on 2008-12-31

      I assume Kaylan's referring to some kind of "objective" truth. (This is TechDirt summarizing Kaylan's view, btw).
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • Yes, I'm sure there are some folks who refuse to read anything critical of their own viewpoints, but those people are so far gone already, I'm not sure it really matters.
    • It's not that the internet is bad for truth. It's that people have started to realize that the "truth" provided to them from official sources wasn't true at all. The real problem for "the truth" was that the actual truth didn't match up to it. That's not the "fault" of the internet -- it's one of the benefits of the internet.
• 

  William Weaver

  techdirt

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Michael Becker on 2008-12-31
  I assume Kaylan's referring to some kind of "objective" truth. (This is TechDirt summarizing Kaylan's view, btw).

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