\u201cBut when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.\u201c<\/p>\n
-Socrates, Phaedrus<\/p>\n
The above quote is an admonishment on the potential dangers of the written word and while it not might be entirely justified in its fears the quote might still be more relevant in our digital environment. The claim that people will appear omniscient and generally know nothing certainly seems prophetic when viewed through the lens of our connected world. Socrates concern might be universally valid for any age it does present a problem of our information use through digital means and that is the potential for misinformation. If we do not know the meaning of everything we read how do we know that the thing we read is indeed true? To re-frame the question in our information society the problem becomes: when we look for information can we know that the information we found is correct and will we ask that question if our lack of information made us seek it in the first place?<\/p>\n
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential for misinformation through digital means and how they differ from traditional means and the how we might not always recognize that we have been misinformed. What will also be examined is when misinformation is more likely to occur than in other situations. Misinformation will be separated into two categories: purposeful and unintentional. The spreading of purposeful misinformation is always done for a reason whether it is for commercial purposes or for personal reasons. The unintentional spreading of misinformation happens when people assume the information they have is legitimate. The problem of digital misinformation is not just that we might receive it but we might also propagate it by sharing it with others.<\/p>\n
However, even if the potential is bigger in a digital world to spread misinformation we should not assume that any information we find is automatically misinformation anymore than we should assume that any information we find is necessarily true. Even though there is huge potential for misinformation in our digital age there is also huge potential in our digital means for spreading correct information as well. Both sides will be examined in the paper.<\/p>\n
Vilhelm L\u00f6nnberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBut when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility … Continue reading Digital Misinformation<\/span>