BY VANSUKA CHINDAVIJAK
CONTENTS .//01 THE WORLD
AT LIGHT SPEED
: What is the Internet, anyway? | Page: 13 : Data and Us | Page: 14
.//02 :HTTP//:
THE ANSWER TO ANYTHING
: Internet is the top souce for answers | Page: 20 : The googlelization of everything | Page: 25
.//03 WHY DOES
IT MATTER?
: Do we trust the Internet too much? | Page: 47
: How to avoide the charlatans | Page: 54
.//04 WHAT CAN
WE DO?
: How to evaluate the website | Page: 56 : Designs for change | Page: 60
BEFORE THE INTERNET, LIFE WAS ?
Alex Wolstenholme Simpler, physically more enjoyable, and information, although less in quantity, was more stable in quality.
...something you lived, not something you comment on. : Grace Jehan
Greg Ball
REAL! There was life before the Internet? : Julia Osovskaya
Not full of memes. : Jakub Smršín Šrámek
“Smarter. More thoughtful.” : Leah Ashley
Full of questions that were difficult to get answers for. : Judy Hart Fillmore Marisa Stieber
Uninformed. Simpler...yet difficult! Research is so much easier now, but you have constant threats of viruses, less interaction and constant mindless “new+scandals”...
Simpler, yet harder. : Maulida Annisa
Tiffany Kim
“SPAMLESS” : Process Creative Studios, Inc.
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>> THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED OUR LIVES SIGNIFICANTLY. WE RELY ON IT TO EVERYDAY TO DO ALMOST EVERYTHING. BUT, HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT YOUR LIFE WOULD BE LIKE WITHOUT IT? THERE ARE ALWAYS TWO SIDES TO EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THE INTERNET. ALMOST EVERYTHING WE DO DEPENDS ON THE USE OF THE INTERNET BUT HAVE WE EVER ASKED OURSELVES HOW MUCH WE CAN TRUST IT?
.//01
THE WORLD AT LIGHT SPEED
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.// WHAT IS THE INTERNET, ANYWAY? The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services. The Internet, in simplest terms, is the large group of millions of computers around the world that are all connected to one another. Once you are connected to the Internet you are able to do many things. You can send and receive e-mail. You can chat with text or voice. You can browse the information on the website. Basically, you can perform countless other tasks within this world without having to go anywhere.
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.// DATA AND US IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT ONLY DECADES AGO THE INTERNET WAS JUST COMPLETELY A STRANGE WORLD. AND NOW IT IS TOO IMPOSSIBLE JUST TO IMAGINE LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT IT.
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.//THERE ARE 1.97 BILLION INTERNET-USERS WORLDWIDE.
EUROPE 24.2%
ASIA 42.0%
AFRICA 5.6%
NORTH AMERICA 13.5%
OCEANIA/ AUSTRALIA 1.1%
LATIN AMERICA 10.4%
MIDDLE EAST 3.2%
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266 MILLION websites as of December 2010
375 MEGABYTES Data consumed by households each day
.//THE WORLD OF DATA
through cable around the world faster than within a blink
1.3 EXABYTES
of an eye. We create massive amounts of information
Data sent and received by mobile Internet users
In the 21st century, we live a large part of our lives online. We have moved from analog world to the virtual world. Almost everything that we do is reduced to bits and send
everyday. Let’s see how much data we create.
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2.9 MILLION Emails sent out every second
200 BILLION Spam emails per day
50 MILLION
20 HOURS
700 BILLION
Tweets per day
Video uploaded to Youtube
Total minutes spent on
every minute
Facebook each month
.//02
://HTTP: THE ANSWER TO ANYTHING
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HTTP//:The Answer to Anything
.// INTERNET IS THE TOP SOURCE FOR ANSWERS The Internet has been a huge boon for information seekers. It has become the main source of information that people would go for if they needed to know anything, from basic questions to high level knowledge. The Internet has totally changed the way people searching for answers and they rely on it so much. The Internet is so convenient that sometimes people would not doubt or forget to check the credibility of the information.
.//PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WHO CONSULT SPECIFIC SOURCES WHEN THEY NEED TO ADDRESS PROBLEMS
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
21
80%
90%
Internet: 58%
Professional advisor: 53%
Friends and family: 45%
Newspapers and books: 36%
Government office: 34%
Television and radio: 16%
Public Library: 13%
Other: 11%
100%
WHAT IS THE FIRST SITE THAT YOU VISIT
TO ASK FOR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING? ENTER
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.// THE GOOGLELIZATION OF EVERYTHING And there came Google.com, search engine that offers you every answers possible for whatever questions you might have. Google seems to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It is no surprise that we hold Google in almost deific awe and respect. But what do we gain and what do we lose by letting Google to be the lens through which we view the world? We may see Google as a savior. We have invited Google to fill the answers for our questions. We now allow Google to determine for us what is important, relevant, and true on the website and in the world. We trust and believe that Google acts in our best interest. But we have surrendered control over the values, methods, systems, and processes that make sense of our information system. In the beginning, the Internet was an intimidating collection, interlinked yet unindexed. It was impossible to sift the valuable from the trashy, the reliable from the exploitative, and the true from the false. Then Google came along. Google was clean, simple, and accepted no money for ranking one page higher in a search result than another. And it offered what seemed to be neutral, democratic rankings. If one website was referred to more than another, it was deemed more relevant to users and would be listed above the rest. Google puts unimaginable amount of resources at our fingertips, huge libraries, archives, warehouses of records, the comings and goings of whole spaces of us.
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WE ARE GIVING GOOGLE’S SEARCH RESULTS INORDINATE AND UNDERSERVED POWER. THESE RESULTS OFFER THE ILLUSION OF PRECISION, ACCURACY, AND RELEVANCE. There is actually a study by Psychologists at the University of California Berkeley discovering that Google’s search technique mimics the ways human brains function and recall information. So it is understandable that we believe that Google’s search rankings are a proxy for quality of information, simply an extension of out collective judgement. But this belief is unhealthy and wrong. For some, seeking knowledge and guidance in navigating the world in the early years of the twenty-first century, Google looks like the ideal model for everything and the solution to every problems.To most people, Google seems helpful. Google’s ideological roots are well documented. Its founders and early employees believe deeply in the power of information technology to transform human consciousness, collective and individual.
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Increasingly, Google has become the lens through which we see the world. It changes our perceptions. Google refracts, more than reflects, what we think is true and important. It filters and focuses our queries and explorations through the world of digitized information. It ranks and links so quickly and it generates the comforting and necessary illusion of both comprehensiveness and precision. Its process of collecting, ranking, linking, and displaying knowledge determines what we think to be good, true, valuable, and relevant. For those who get lost in data, words, sounds, and images, Google has become more than a blessing. It organizes the massive amount of data in order. More than guiding us to answers and opportunities, it filters out noise: it prevents us from being distracted by millions of documents that might serve our needs by guessing what we want. If Google is the dominant way we navigate the Internet, and so the primary lens through which we experience both the local and the global, then it has power to set agendas and later perceptions. Its biases, valuing popularity over accuracy and rough rankings, are built into Google’s algorithms. And it affects how we value and perceive things, and navigate the worlds of ideas. On the other hand, we are folding Google’s method into our perceptions. It controls, judges, ranks, filters, and delivers what it think it is essential information to us. What if what we truly need is being left out in the process?
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THE INTERNET IS THE FIRST THING THAT HUMANITY HAS BUILT THAT HUMANITY DOESN’T UNDERSTAND, THE LARGEST EXPERIMENT IN ANARCHY THAT , , WE HAVE EVER HAD. : ERIC SCHMIDT, CEO OF GOOGLE.
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.//THE SEARCH FOR BETTER SEARCH At most search engine company, the computers take the string of text that users type in a box and search their vast indexes of websites for matches. Among the best matches, each webstie is ranked instantly by a system that judges relevance. Google calls this ranking method PageRank: links rise to the top of the list of search results by attracting a large number of incoming links from other pages. The more significant or highly ranked a recommending page is, the more wright a link from it carries within the PageRank scoring system. Each website copied into Google's servers thus carries with it a set of relative scores instantly calculated to place it in a particular place on a results page, and this ranking is presumed to reflect its relevance to the search query. Relevance tends to mean something similar to value, but it is a relative and possible value, because relevance is also estimated in a way that is specific not just to the search itself but also the the search history of the user. Google and every other search engines always leave logs or cookies in user’s Internet browser, because it is more interested in what the potential results pages mean than what the user might think about. For now, search engines do not “read� the query for meaning. They are purely navigational. They only point.
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While Google provides users with the information they seek seemingly for free, it also collects the data of users’ personal information and creative content and sells this information to advertisers of millions of products and services. Using Google is way far from free. Actually, Google's real customers are the advertisers who pay Google to compete in an auction to rise up to the top of a list of “sponsored results” that frame the “organic search” of each search. Content creators have passively allowed Google accessed to their websites for the privilege of being indexed, linked, and ranked. Google did not invent contextual advertising, but it mastered at it. GoTo.com developed a system to link search results to advertisements back in 1998. Google decided to adopt this practice in 2002, it had settled on an ingenious way to sell the best positions around a search term or an instant auction. For example, if you types the word “shoes” into a Google search box, Google's computers instantly solicit bids from shoe vendors. The highest bidder, the firm that offers the most money per click, with a clear ceiling of maximum clicks it is willing to pay for, gets top placement in search results. Google does not charge the winning bidder the amount it bid, but instead the amount of the second-place bid, so that bidders need not fear placing a needlessly high bid; it helps small firms compete with large ones. This system enhances consumer satisfaction with Google's service and helps keep the Internet clean.
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.//THE FREE RIDE Whenever we write anything on the Internet—blog entries, post reviews of products, upload photos, or even make short videos—Google finds them. It finds everything and it copies whatever that has been found. Every search engines make a cache, copy of material they find, so that their computers can manage a search. Then, when people search for content relating to their search queries, Google places revenue-generating advertisements on the search results throughout its program. We could say Google is taking a free ride on the creative content of billions of content creators. But the ride is not free at all. Even though we do not ever negotiate terms of a contract, we essentially agree by not opting out or disagreeing that search engines may copy our content and make money from the process of judging, ranking, and connecting people to it in exchange for the privilege of our content being found. What if what we want to know unintentionally matches the nonsense result that it offers?
WE REALLY NEED TO ASK OURSELVES WHETHER GOOGLE’S DOMINANCE IS THE BEST SITUATION AND SOLUTION FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR INFORMATION SYSTEM.
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WHAT IF WHAT WE NEED UNFORTUNATELY MATCHES THE NONSENSE RESULTS THAT GOOGLE OFFERS?
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.//GOOGLE’S WAY Google's brilliant innovation was its search system, algorithm, and the way it measures us and builds its systems and services to yeild our desires and weaknesses. Google works for us because it seems to read our minds—and, in a way, it does. Google guesses what you might want to see based on requests that you and others like you have already expressed. You can type a vague term into the search box, not knowing exactly how to phrase what you want, and Google will most likely return a wonderfully appropriate list of things you might want. Moreover, Google conditions us to accept and believe that the list is in fact what we want. Google works so well, so simply, and so fast that it infused trust and faith in us. It works like a magic and everyone loves magic. Just typing a keyword into the search box and less than a second later the monitor screen in front of us offers a list of answers. The suggestive power of Google search, made explicit by the drop-down list of choices that appears when we start typing, is also the magic that hooks us. It seems like Google has measured and understood us better than we have assessed ourselves in many ways.
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.//THE FASTER, THE BETTER Google vice president, Marissa Mayer once explained during her keynote speech at a software developers' conference in 2008 that one of the most significant things Google noticed was that speed matters more than anything else in generating a positive user experience. “Users really care about speed,” Mayer told developers. “They respond to speed. As the web gets faster, as Google gets faster, people search more.” More searching yields more advertising links displayed, more advertising links clicked, and more revenue for Google's advertising clients and Google itself. To Google users, this amazing process is invisible. Making users wise to its power is not a priority of the company: quite the opposite. ”It's very, very complicated technology, but behind a very simple interface,” Mayer said. ”We think that that's the best way to do things. Our users don't need to understand how complicated the technology and the development work that happens behind this is. What they do need to understand is that they can just go to a box, type what they want, and get answers.” It seems like they do care about the speed of the search so that they can get more money out of the clicks but what about the quality of the information? We, as the Internet users, have to be more careful and ask ourselves that are the quality information getting lost in the way. Putting to much faith on Google is dangerous because it increases our appetite for goods, services, information, amusement, distraction, and efficiency. We are now addicted to speed and convenience for the sake of speed and convenience that sometimes we forget to doubt the quality of the information we get.
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.//TRUST BIAS As mentioned before, we trust technology that satisfies our prejudices. We want fast access to relevant and reliable information. We trust Google because, compared with the other options, it really works fast, produces information that usually seems relevant, reliable and trustworthy. Users believe that Google's rankings are honest expressions of probable importance and relevance. They demonstrate a trust bias when selecting one of these links to click they trust Google's algorithm judgment about which websites or links are appropriate.
.//THE PRAGMATIC THEORY OF SEARCH Our trust in Google is practical in more than just the ordinary sense of the term. We believe that a concensus about what is important arrived at by apparently democratic ways, is probably trustworthy. As Charles Sanders Peirce and William James developed the theories of pragmatism in the 1890s and Richard Rorty refined it almost century later, the pragmatic theory of truth states that truth is generated through a process of experimentation, discovery, feedback, and consensus. The true statement is therefore one that works in the world. It conforms to experience and observation, yet is under constant pressure of revision, as Peirce explained. Truth is not attached to a thing in the world per se, but to our experiences of that thing and to our conversation about and collective understanding of it. People and peoples can disagree over what is true, and that disagreement is a part of the process of moving toward the truth.
WE TRUST GOOGLE WITH NO DOUBT IS BECAUSE, COMPARED WITH THE OTHER OPTIONS, GOOGLE REALLY WORKS FAST, PRODUCES INFORMATION THAT USUALLY SEEMS RELEVANT, RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY.
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Truth is not merely a thoughtful reflection of reality. It is different for everyone, depending on differences of perspective and experience.
THE TRUTH OF AN IDEA IS NOT A STAGNANT PROPERTY “ INHERENT IN IT, TRUTH HAPPENS TO AN IDEA, IT BECOMES TRUE, IS MADE TRUE BY EVENTS. ITS VERITY IS IN FACT AN EVENT, A PROCESS: THE PROCESS NAMELY OF ITS VERIFYING ITSELF, ITS VERI-FICATION.” James's focus on the dynamism of truth—what Rorty later called “contingency”— is embodied in Google PageRank. The field in which the affirmations are transformed into contingent, temporary judgements of relevance or, truth, is the PageRank algorithm. And this is the glory of PageRank and Google's Web Search system in general.How else would one make sense of something as active and messy as the Internet? Just as pragmatism helps us understand what we mean when we say something is true or that we believe something, Google helps us by sifting through an enormous array of documents and orders them in a way that reflects a rough consensus among Internet users. Pragmatism also helps us understand that the contingency of truth and value demands that we interrogate the biases and flaws in our collective judgments and the language we use to describe what is true and valuable.
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THE GOOGLE SEARCH ALGORITHMS ARE BUILT TO FAVOR CERTAIN TYPES OF CONTENT OVER OTHERS, AND TO REWARD THE ACCUMULATION OF ACTS AND BEHAVIORS OF USERS. SO THE BIASES ARE RARELY DIRECT AND OBVIOUS. FROM “SEARCH ENGINE BIAS AND THE DEMISE OF SEARCH ENGINE UTOPIAISM” BY ERIC GOLDMAN,
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Information technologies favor some contents or users
Sometimes back in 2006, Wikipedia pages began ranking
over others. To use the Internet wisely, we need to
very high in many Google search. This could be a result
understand the nature of biases and adjust expectations
of Wikipedia's widespread use and good reputation for
to accommodate or correct for them. So that a declaration
usefulness, if not accuracy and comprehensiveness.
or description of bias is not an accusation of a system.
Google and Wikipedia serve each other very well because
A bias is not always necessarily bad: it is necessary. It is important to grasp some of the major biases inherent in Google’s search system. First of all, no search engine
the editing standards in Wikipedia depend on an entry's relevance and circularly relevance depends on how prominently Google presents that subject.
indexes everything. All of them make choices based
The relationship between Google and Wikipedia seems
on characteristics of a page. Second, not all hyperlinks
strong enough that it is very unlikely that any reference
are created equal. Most of them are votes of support
sources could win Wikipedia. Since Google is designed
or affirmation. Many hyperlinks are votes of derision,
to favor those websites with the most votes from people
generated by a critic to point to flaws or falsehoods.
who use the Internet, rather than those supported by
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ANOTHER PROBLEM IS WE ARE FLOODED WITH DATA, AND SO MUCH OF IT ARE POORLY LABELED AND RANDOMLY COPIED. WE SEEK MAXIMUM SPEED RATHER THAN DELIBERATION AND WISDOM. knowledgeable experts, this could be sometimes harmful when people, even those who should know better, trust a simple Google search as the first step toward the truth. Poor-quality searches by Google users are only part of the problem with googling for knowledges. The ways that Google structures, judges, and delivers knowledge to us alter our worst attitude to jump to erroneous conclusions and act on them inlays that cause harm. Another problem is we are flooded with data, much of it poorly labeled and randomly copied. We seek maximum speed rather than deliberation and wisdom. Many of our systems are biased toward the new and the now. And even living intimately with the Internet for almost two decades, we lack understanding of what such complex information systems can and cannot do, or even how they work. We trust them and allow it to affect our expectations and information about the world. Using Google habitually raises our expectations about matters both deep and shallow.
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.//SEARCH ENGINE USERS
68%
19%
1/6
19% of Internet users express a lack of trust in search engines. 68% consider search engines to
38%
be fair and unbiased. 44% of them use only 1 search engine when they want something. 48% use two or three. 38% are aware of the distinction between sponsored links and
48%
44%
algorithmically search results. Only 1 in 6 users could tell the difference between sponsored links and the generated results.
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TECHNOLOGY IS SO MUCH FUN BUT WE CAN DROWN IN OUR TECHNOLOGY.THE FOG OF INFORMATION CAN DRIVE , , OUT KNOWLEDGE. : DANIEL J.BOORSTIN
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.//THE GOOGLELIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE Our search for knowledge can be much more efficient and comprehensive now that we have the huge collection of documents sits just a few keystrokes away. We can access to more information than we could ever know what to do with. So it feels somewhat liberating. But are we drowning in data, unable to distinguish good from bad, true from false? The description of the difference between knowledge and information does not fully describe our current condition. Knowledge involves what, at least pragmatically, is true and good, beautiful and useful. Information always requires interpretation or some form of processing to be judged and begin to serve as the basis for knowledge. Too much unrefined information interferes with the generation of knowledge. It can change the valuable and beautiful. It can also diminish respect for the carefully crafted knowledge. The standard distinction between information and knowledge helps us understand anything very well. What matters is now we choose what to consider in our daily judgments and choices. What we think is information overload is actually a function of “filter failure.” When we feel overwhelmed by the quantity of information we take, it is a sign that we have not figured out how to manage our flows of information. Today, we allow the power of Google search to be a tool that filters information for us. We might be comfortable with that but we should not be blind.
WHAT WE THINK IS DATA OVERLOAD IS ACTUALLY A FUNCTION OF THE FILTER FAILURE. AND WE SHOULD NOT BE FOOLED BY THE EASE OF THE POWER OF GOOGLE SEARCH.
.//03 3
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
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.// WHY DOES IT MATTER? Determining online data can be tricky. Since in this digital age, readers or viewers are tricked by the ease of just-one-click-then-know-it-all and by instant knowledges that search engine have offered them. The freedom of speech can also be one of the tricky part when anyone can post just about anything without second pair of eyes checking it for accuracy, as in traditional publishing. Other than the concern about relying too much on Google, credibility of the information we find on the Internet is also the issue here. The Internet is a tool that allow the manipulation. We can no longer count on the legitimacy of the information since the easy accessibility for giving created things on the Internet are in the hands of millions of computer owners.
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Obviously, Internet users have access to more information than at any time in history, but is high-quality information getting lost? Moreover, worries that many people lie online are overblown, says Jeffrey T. Hancock, an associate professor of communications at Cornell University. “Reasons to lie on the Internet are the same ones we have in real life,” such as enhancing our reputations or accomplishing some specific goal, he says. Few people actually says, “Hey, I’m online, why not just lie?” Even in online situations where lying is most likely, most who do lie stretch the truth by about 15 percent, he says. People dropped an average of two lies every day. Since many of our day-to-day interactions have moved online, now we are communicating in new ways, but we still have the same old anxieties about who is telling the truth. “Technology simply interferes in some ways that might decrease or facilitate the opportunity to lie.” says Hancock. Without the face-to-face interaction that provides non-verbal cues of deception like avoiding eye contact, therefore, we should concern about whether we can trust what we see online. All of us have to work harder to determine credibility. But are we ready to be critical when consuming information on the Internet?
REASONS TO LIE ON THE INTERNET ARE THE SAME ONES WE HAVE IN REAL LIFE. PEOPLE LOVE HAVING THEIR VOICE HEARD. THEY LIKE TO KNOW THAT OTHERS HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY AND THEY HAVE MADE AN IMPACT.
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WEBSITE LITERACY IS NOT DIFFERENT THAN INFORMATION LITERACY. DO KEEP IN MIND THAT ALL INFORMATION HAS BIAS AND NEED TO BE EVALUATED.
Many researchers think that many information on the Internet is suspect and not nearly as credible as that appearing in print sources. One person's misinformation or mistake can be another person's gold mine. And it spreads thousand times faster than print sources, as if it travels at the speed of light. Many websites offer alternative perspective to topics. Even so-called hate sites can provide useful information in bringing to light material that is typically censored from most public discourse. While website literacy demands intelligent Internet use, website literacy is not really qualitatively different than information literacy. All information has bias and need to be evaluated.
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.// WHAT CAN WE DO? The spectrum of misinformation and bias on the Internet will continue to grow rapidly unless the Internet is strictly regulated, which seem unlikely if not impossible, not to mention undesirable. Adopting a critical stance toward everything you read on the Internet is the best protection you can have against the misinformation and the bias. Reality itself seems to stand on very shaky ground these days. It is a slippery slope growing ever steeper. Internet just make deception swifter, more effective, and more invisible. As always, the originator of the rumors is never get caught.
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.//HOW TO AVOID THE CHARLATANS
KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR Remember that you can't find what you are looking for unless you know what it is. The old cliche, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there,” is as true here as when behind the wheel. Before sitting down in front of the computer screen, consider what it is you seek. If you know what you want, you're less likely to follow link after link, wasting time and getting nowhere. If the link you find does not focus on what you seek, go back to the search results and start again.
DON’T ASSUME THAT PEOPLE ONLINE ARE WHO THEY SAID THEY ARE Always Remember that people drop an average 2 lies everyday in real life. Imagine how easier would that be to make a prank or even a innocent lie on the Internet. Don’t be fooled.
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BE SKEPTICAL Evaluating information of the website requires the same 5Ws and H-Who, What, When, Why, and How. Maintain a healthy skepticism, even if there are references. When was the piece written? When was it last updated? If there is no date on the piece, how do you know it is still current? No matter how good the credentials of the website, outdated information is still outdated information. How did you find the information? This is an issue many people overlook. If you find this website through a series of link from other websites, remember that it retrains the bias of every website prior to the one you are on.
DOUBT AND LOOK FURTHER Don’t trust everything you see on the Internet. Remember to look for at least two sources to check the credibility. Believe everything on the Internet at the first website is not ok, what if it is all lie? Always doubt the Information you got from the Internet and explore the resources at your public library, where you might find information further more.
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.//HOW TO EVALUATE THE WEBSITE
WHO WROTE IT? Any website author doesn’t have to have a certain level of education, obtain a certificate or license, meet any professional criteria, or pass a test in order to create a website. All that a website generator needs is a little Internet skill and cable
SPONSORS
connection.
Who sponsors the website? If there is any, the sponsor should provide name and information. There might be any bias in the presentation of the information.
WHO PUBLISHED IT? Some publishers have excellent reputations. It is always better to rely on the official publisher instead
of
a
secondary
publish,
who
is
FEEDBACK?
republishing the data, as innocent errors can be inadvertently introduced in a number of ways. This is also where intentional errors can be slipped in, making it deceptive as well as incorrect.
Opportunities for providing feedback for users are an important factor of quality. Websites that let negative reviews stay there rather than remove them tend to be more sincere and reliable.
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IS THE INFORMATION CURRENT, ACCURATE, AND COMPLETE? Currency may not matter for some things. But for some particular things, currency is necessary. If it is not current, it may be a problem to rely on it. And sometimes you may find current and accurate information, but the information provided on the website is only part of the story. Sometimes you need complete information.
URL EXTENSION Also check the extension on the URL. While site ending with .org, .edu, or .gov might indicate a noncommercial
USE SEVERAL SOURCES
environment, that does not mean that the site does not have a hidden agenda
Where
possible,
seek
information
from
several sources, especially from organizations, persons, or institutions with which you are familiar and already have some confidence. Don’t let the Internet prevent you from seeking competent professional advice.
to support a particular position.
.
.
.// DESIGNS FOR CHANGE I believe that design has a lot of impact to people’s lives and the power of design can change everything. Design can solve problem. Designers create so much of what we see and experience that we cannot live without. As a graphic designer, I would like to offer design solutions that could have solved this problem. These design proposals might not be the best ways, but I believe that my design solution could help make the difference more or less.
.
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“THEY DON’T WANT TO CONSIDER OTHER MEDIA BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID AND LAZY.” : MADELINE PRICHASON .//PROPOSAL SOLUTION People can be too lazy and ignorant when it comes to cross-checking the information that they found online. They tend to believe the very first place of information that comes to the screen. To encourage people to question the credibility of the content found on the websites, and to seek for validations of the information. Encourage them to compare, synthesize and judge between various resources for each subject. I will create a how-to CD to as a guidance for people in order to go through the process of evaluating the information. The digital book will also contain the basic information about cause and effects of the misperception of each subject.
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SHARE YOUR VOICE SO MORE TRUTHS CAN BE HEARD. Let’s all blog about the Internet credibility to create a widespread alert to all Internet users on Blog Action Day 2012!
1 DAY 1 VOICE 1,000,000 HEARD
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BLOG ACTION DAY HAS FOCUSED ON BLOGGERS AROUND THE WORLD TO BLOG ABOUT ONE IMPORTANT TOPIC ON THE SAME DAY. .//PROPOSAL SOLUTION Blog action day is an annual nonprofit event that unites the world’s bloggers to blog about the same issue on the same day. Past topics included water, climate change, poverty and food. Since this issue has not been addressed in the Blog Action Day yet. I would like to address the issue as a global awareness campaign through this blog channel since to me it seems to be very appropriate for the subject. This channel is known widespread among Internet bloggers and it can be a very effective mean.
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“THE INTERNET IS INCREASINGLY BEING USED AS A TOOL TO SPREAD DISINFORMATION.” :TIM BERNERS-LEE, THE CREATOR OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB .//PROPOSAL SOLUTION The Internet is a tool for manipulation. It has been abused by being used as a tool to spread misinformation and there is no main neutral site that people can go to when they need help. I would like to create a main neutral platform or forum that only people with certified accounts could log in to and exchange information and knowledge. This platform will strictly contain only proven facts that people can truly use as references and to verify with other information that they previously found from other sources. And to make the assistance even more accessible, mobile devices application will be developed alongside with the website. So that people can seek help wherever they are.
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THERE ARE FACTUAL WEBSITES THAT HAVE NOT YET DONE A GOOD ENOUGH JOB OF ORGANIZING TEXT DISPLAYED ON THEIR WEBSITES. .//PROPOSAL SOLUTION Since the Internet has shortened people’s attention span, they do not read every single word; they just skim. Factual websites that contain a lot of truthful information lack a hierarchy, which leads to misinterpretation. People tend to be attracted to a well-organized layout of a website rather than a text-heavy websites. As a graphic designer, arranging text blocks and images are the main things we do. I would like to create ready-to-use templates that allow web developers or bloggers to arrange text and images in a pleasing way.
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UNEDUCATED PEOPLE TEND TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING THEY READ ON THE INTERNET COMPARED TO EDUCATED PEOPLE. .//PROPOSAL SOLUTION I believe that uneducated people are not dumb. They just do not know what to believe. And they tend to believe or trust everything that they read on the Internet. The more they read, the more they get lost. In order to solve this problem, we must educate them how to use the Internet safely. I would like to guide them through by publishing a book. The book will include easy-to-read articles about Internet with case studies and tips to be self-aware and cautious.
CONCLUSION
>> YOU CAN CERTAINLY SAFELY USE THE INTERNET TO FIND QUALITY RESOURCES WITHOUT ENDANGERING ANYONE, INCLUDING YOURSELF. JUST BECAUSE IT IS THERE ON THE INTERNET DOES NOT MEAN IT IS GOOD, CORRECT, CURRENT, OR EVEN RELIABLE. AND JUST BECAUSE THE WEBSITE IS BEING SHOWN IN THE FIRST SEARCH RESULTS DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN IT IS THE BEST ANSWER FOR YOU EITHER. THE QUALITY, ACCURACY, AND REALIABILITY OF INFORMATION YOU FIND MAY BE GOOD, BAD OR ANYWHERE IN BETWEEN, BUT ALSO IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS TOTALLY UNRELIABLE. IT DOES MEAN THAT, AS WITH ANY OTHER RESOURCES, YOU MUST EVALUATE THE MATERIAL YOU FIND. GOOD JUDGEMENT IS CALLED FOR. BE SKEPTICAL, NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU READ AT FIRST GLANCE. AND ALWAYS QUESTION EVERYTHING. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: DO NOT CHECK YOUR COMMON SENSE AT THE KEYBOARD.
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USE IT, BUT DON,T TRUST IT.,,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Designed and Written: Vansuka Chindavijak_Primary Typefaces: Carbon, designed by Anuthin Wongsunkakon, Univers, designed by Adrian Frutiger, and Bienvenu, designed by Neale Davidson. _Cover Paper: Epson Exhibition Canvas_Body Text Paper: Luxe White 160G by Paper-Source _Printing: Epson Stylus Pro 4880
Mintz, Anne P. Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet. Medford, N.J: CyberAge, 2002. Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googleliztion of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). University of California Press, 2011. Pariser, Eli. The filter Bubble. New York: The Penguin Press, 2011. “What Do People Think of Spam? | Visual.ly.” Infographics & Data Visualizations Visual.ly. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://visual.ly/what-do-people-think-spam>. Wagner, Kyle. “Why It’s So Easy to Lie on the Internet.” Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://gizmodo.com/5863787/why-its-so-easy-to-lieon-the-internet>. “Blogging: Not for the Young? | GDS Publishing.” Online Digital News | Next Generation Online News | GDS Publishing. Web. 15 Dec. 2011. <http://www. ngonlinenews.com/news/blogging-not-for-the-young/>. Harrisson, Chris. Internet Map. 2007. Photograph. Visualcomplexity.com. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=492>. “The World of Data We’re Creating on the Internet - Technology - GOOD.” GOOD Home Page - GOOD. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://www.good.is/post/the-world-ofdata-we-re-creating-on-the-internet/>. “Wikipedia Lies, Accuracy of Internet Information.” Jim Karpen.Com. Web. 27 Nov. 2011. <http://www.jimkarpen.com/wikipedia-lies.html>. “Does Google Make Us Stupid?” Pew Research Center. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. <http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1499/google-does-it-make-us-stupid-expertsstakeholders-mostly-say-no>. “False Reporting on the Internet and the Spread of Rumors: Three Case Studies.” gnovisjournal.org. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://gnovisjournal.org/files/Paul-Hitlin-False-Reporting-on-the-Internet.pdf>.