By chance, I arrived to an old and interesting BBC news report (2008), Warning sounded on web’s future, on the worries of Tim Berners-Lee about the spreading of disinformation using the web. Such worries are still totally valid today. The article also touches on other related topics such as extending the reach of the web and improving the web’s usability.
Regarding the problem of publishing insincere or unfounded information on the web, Berners-Lee cited the campaign started because of the activation of the Large Hadron Collider. Specifically, some groups used the web for communicate invalid beliefs about the world being destroyed by effect of the LHC. This use of the web is, in first instance, unethical. Further, it may transmit fears, and additionally, the information posted by such groups has no scientific grounds. This a typical example of misusing a system.
(Photo by toccia). This kind of problem arises because of the web’s intrinsic nature. The web is a different system… a system which is now inevitably linked to the behavior and trends of human society. The web is an open and complex system. It’s open because we can add as much information as we want, and it’s complex because it’s composed of a huge amount of producers and consumers of information, and their interactions. There is other factor that shapes the web complexity: evolution
The web changes at very high rates. The web’s technologies an content change so quickly, that it’s impossible for any person to assimilate all this evolution. After all, the user only wants to open her browser and read the news. Typically, she is interested neither in the technical details behind the publishing platform, nor in the path followed by the information until arriving to the final form on the online media. There is a tool the user recurs to in order to fight complexity: trust.
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