Web of deceit

Posted on 28 Jan 2005 at 17:42

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Gallery

The unregulated nature of the internet means that deceitful websites are rife. Alan Docherty looks at online hoaxes from the hilarious to the downright dangerous and gives you some tips on how to spot a net fraud

Hard-nosed hacks are conned. Government officials are confused. It is little wonder internet users feel a little uncertain about what they find online. So how do you sort the truths from the plausible lies?

There is no shortage of people out to mislead us, deliberately or otherwise. Sites claim that the 11th September attacks were a Jewish conspiracy, that Princess Diana was killed by MI5 and that herbal tea cures cancer. According to Jan Brunvand, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Utah, "there is a definite danger of many non-critical thinkers believing that if it is there on the net it must have some kind of credibility".

The spread of misinformation is helped by the weakening of traditional sources of authoritative information. Consider Andrew Gilligan's flawed report for Radio 4's Today in 2003, which caused a crisis at the BBC that led him and others to resign.

Now politicians are taking note. The Communications Act 2003 charges the Office of Communications to "bring about, or to encourage others to bring about, a better public understanding of the nature and characteristics of material published by means of the electronic media". This is commonly known as 'media literacy' - that is, being able to understand media messages from TV, radio, newspapers and the internet and how they attempt to persuade us.

Julie Frechette, author of Developing Media Literacy in Cyberspace, says: "As we enter the 21st century, media literacy is perhaps the most important skill we need to become critical thinkers and an engaged and informed citizenry. It used to be that families, schools, churches and governmental institutions were the primary institutions dominating our society but today the media are the most dominant cultural force. Children and youths spend more time watching television and using electronics than they spend learning in the classroom."

WHO TO TRUST

Improving media literacy is not just for kids. It is essential that we all take a critical approach to the internet. There are plenty of conspiracy sites and pages of junk on the net, but a few simple tips can help the wary find their way from fiction to fact.

First, the websites of established organisations are usually reliable. News gatherers such as the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters and CNN maintain huge operations around the world and stake their reputations on getting information to readers quickly and accurately. Their journalists are taught the importance of sorting facts from opinion and getting the story right. If journalists make a mistake, editors are usually on hand to pick up significant problems before they reach the public.

Despite this, journalists currently have a credibility problem. The New York Times was rocked last year when reporter Jayson Blair was exposed as having invented quotes and faking at least 36 articles. The media giant called it the "low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper". It is little wonder that public confidence in journalists is so low, and a MORI poll in 2003 found that 75 per cent of people would not trust journalists.

With confidence declining in institutions such as the BBC and the New York Times, alternative players can have a greater impact. The Drudge Report, run by Matt Drudge, was the first website to break the story of Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Matt Drudge now limits himself to using his home page to link to hundreds of news sites and the occasional exclusive. Drudge has his failures too, though, and earlier this year he posted a rumour that presidential candidate John Kerry had had an affair with an intern. The allegations turned out to be completely bogus.