The Internet
– Friend or Frankenstein
Question: What do the Internet Web sites drugpolicycentral,
tweetmeme, maghrebdaily, squidoo, hellocleveland, azreporter and
lanceandgraal have in common? Answer: They were among the huge
number of sites across the nation linked to my column about John
Patrick Bedell and mental illness. The focus areas of the linked
sites ran from news to drugs policy to Middle Eastern affairs to
real estate.
The Internet – Friend or Frankenstein
Question: What do the Internet Web sites drugpolicycentral, tweetmeme, maghrebdaily, squidoo, hellocleveland, azreporter and lanceandgraal have in common? Answer: They were among the huge number of sites across the nation linked to my column about John Patrick Bedell and mental illness. The focus areas of the linked sites ran from news to drugs policy to Middle Eastern affairs to real estate.
My opinion piece was only one of hundreds of stories about the incident instantly available to everyone. But how much of the news and other “facts” floating around the Internet are true? An untruth repeated 10,000 times is still untrue; the Internet repeats untruths not 10,000 times, but endlessly. If we cannot discern truth from untruth in the news, the Internet will like Frankenstein’s monster – a technological marvel too dangerous to have around.
I wrote the column Saturday morning and sent it to the Free Lance for the usual Tuesday print edition; I was thinking like a columnist. The editor was thinking like a newspaperman and he said, “No, I’m posting it online right now because the comments and other stories are already all over the Internet.” That’s how it started out on freelancenews.com.
In no time, it was popping up in the most unlikely places. I was so flattered I e-mailed friends and family, but I was also curious – how did it happen that I got my two-nanoseconds of fame almost instantly? Note – it used to be 15-minutes of fame, but things are faster on the Internet!
I had no illusions about the column, it was good, but it was not a candidate for a Pulitzer Prize. Why was it picked up? The answer was obvious; most of the process was on automatic pilot. Some news organization went hunting for stories from Hollister, Patrick’s hometown, came upon mine and put it in the news system. After that, the tireless “bots” did all the work.
“Bot” is computer lingo – a short form of “robot.” A bot is software or a program that operates independently and “simulates a human activity.”
The most popular bots access web sites, retrieve documents and follow all the hyperlinks in them. The bots are collecting links, but who is checking the story – probably no one. Note – ironically, I retrieved the definition of bot from the Computer Dictionary Online!
My editor read my offering prior to posting, but after that, I’m not sure if any editor read it. Once the bots put the links in, you open news.google.com and searched for “Bedell” – the story came up with a hundred of others. People were not merely reading copies – they were reading the original identified by the URL (Uniform Resource Locator), the electronic address.
In the heyday of the newspaper, national news was often collected by agencies such as the Associated Press, founded in the late 1800s. They distributed news to the papers electronically where editors would control the layout and content. This system was not slow, but it was not instantaneous. Critically, there was an experienced editor at each key node with the opportunity to evaluate and question the story.
Questioning a story was not a common occurrence, but at least it was part of the process – not anymore. Now you usually get it raw and if it’s wrong – well, that’s your problem.
Censorship is not a realistic option because that will eventually result in financial or political manipulation. The best protection has to informed users capable of applying critical thinking; producing those is the job of the education system and all of society. The lesson is more important than ever – the Internet is only a tool not a substitute for intelligence.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident.
