Misinformation

Marcus Zarra on the dangers of misinformation

We tend to take written information as truth and assume it is accurate unless we know for certain that it is not. If we read something about a subject which we are not very knowledgeable about, we assume that the author has the credentials to be posting that information. Otherwise, why would it be posted?

I wrote about this way back in 2012:

Here's the thing. Most information we come across is difficult to verify. More specifically, it's far too time-consuming to verify. For me to unquestionably verify the polar bear statement, I would have to study polar bears. I'd likely have to dedicate years of my life and countless dollars to this effort. It's much easier to simply accept the information and move on.

This is a huge, unsolvable problem. It has always been a problem, but it is simply huge now. It's a natural consequence of anyone being able to publish anything online.