Truth and Bias

Alec Couros


Truth and bias on line

An unrealistic expectation would be that the web provides truthful information always. Information makes one think, hopefully – with the glaringly obvious statement that humans enter the information and those humans have bias - or they straight out lie, embellish, hope to entertain, impact people’s thinking…

The earliest and strongest visual that stays with me is the “Cat in the jar” or Bonsai Kittens. It caused an outpouring of anger through the SPCA in a little town in NZ not long after I left – and made the local paper. I do believe the entre population of 60,000 may have had access to 1,000 computers at that time so one would hope the exposure over time to so many untruths, jokes etc has made people more discerning – but then again – it still looked real and possible last week – so still the reactions occur. Spaghetti on trees – laughable now – but at the time.? With the exponential growth of information it is more and more important to know how to be as discerning as possible about sites used and information accuracy.

Reviewing in my mind– many days later - the video link shown by Chris Betcher is a well organized and timely reminder for all.