Is the Internet lying to us?
(麻豆淫院Org.com) -- University of Alberta scholars talk about the relativity of truth on the World Wide Web.
Truth and lies on the Internet are all a matter of context according to some of the University of Alberta鈥檚 foremost scholars in humanities computing and information science.
Geoffrey Rockwell, a professor of philosophy and humanities computing and the director of the Canadian Institute for Research in Computing and the Arts, was the keynote speaker and mediator of a panel discussion hosted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Panelists Ofer Arazy from the Department of Accounting and Management Information Systems in the Alberta School of Business; Susan Brown, a professor in the Department of English & Film Studies and lead researcher on the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory project; Peter Baskerville, from the departments of history and classics, humanities computing, and co-leader of West and North, Canadian Century Research Infrastructure; and Lisa Given, a professor in the School of Library and Information Studies and the Department of Humanities Computing, each brought a different focus to the discussion of 鈥榯ruth鈥� in this digital age.
鈥淚t seems that what is true and false is often negotiated in a community or a microcommunity. Has the Internet changed how we negotiate truths?鈥� Rockwell asked. 鈥淚鈥檓 interested in a slightly different phenomenon where you have communities forming that basically reinforce each other鈥檚 truths and are not listening鈥攁nd this is probably something that鈥檚 always happened鈥攖o other voices, and are not actually asking the questions that we ask of information.鈥�
Ofer said that two things are happening simultaneously and exist on a large scale.
鈥淪ome people argue that over the Internet you see a variety and diversity of ideas, and that鈥檚 what drives innovation, that鈥檚 what drives the wisdom of the crowd鈥攖he quality of Wikipedia for example,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut, on the other hand, if you look at some of the smaller communities where people of the same opinions come together to reinforce one another, they鈥檙e not open to other opinions.鈥�
Given, who has been asked to assess the quality of evidence, including documents submitted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in Canada鈥檚 courts, said that people need to be trained to sort the garbage from the useful information.
鈥淧eople will often get into circular arguments where they can start to use self citation, or selective citation, in particular ways in order to sell their particular argument, often without a lot of critical thought. Along comes an outsider to look at these trappings of credibility as it were, and sometimes it鈥檒l be a mix of information overload, sometimes just a lack of knowledge about how to now assess credibility,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are certain ways that information can be manipulated and used to play on that normal notion of, 鈥極h my gosh, there鈥檚 a lot out there and how will I weed my way through it?鈥欌��
When Rockwell asked whether the Internet can be made to tell more compelling, more comprehensive and useable truths, the panellists all agreed that context was key.
鈥淐ontext is all, in many ways,鈥� said Brown. 鈥淭he same text can, out of context, be a piece of hate speech, and, within context, be a historicized document that works against hate speech. I think we do need to move, as a scholarly community, away from the notion that truth as it operates in something like Wikipedia is not sufficient. I think in the humanities, in particular, we鈥檝e moved beyond the idea of singular truth or objective truth, to an understanding of truth as situated and negotiated by communities.鈥�
鈥淭he big thing is, the Internet can provide more useable, richer and more nuanced context,鈥� agreed Baskerville. 鈥淭he key word is context and the real danger on the Internet is lack thereof. So, anything that builds that and maintains that is good.
鈥淣umber two, we have to keep it open. There鈥檚 this tension with commercialization and I think that has to be really looked at closely because it鈥檚 a creeping, eroding and sinister kind of thing from the point of view of open scholarship.鈥�
Provided by University of Alberta
