Disinfosphere!
In this article about the Twitter Iran event, the author creates my new favorite word: disinfosphere. He brings up what I consider to be a legitimate point - the Internet is providing (creating?) a lot of disinformation.
It's easy to see with a little thought experiment. Imagine some group you really hate, just the farthest out there fringe of fucked up examples of humanity. Maybe it's the guys over at Free Republic, or Westboro Church, whatever, just imagine the most fucked up people you can. The consider how their insanity and stupidity is reinforced by the websites that they frequent - rather than get any information that would move them to a more reasonable understanding of the world, they seek out the information that confirms them in their biases.
Of course, we all do this. After all, the article I just posted was from Counterpunch and not Fox News. But that is also the point. In addition to creating new expressions of information, the Internet also creates new expressions of bigotry, hatred and generalized stupidity. It creates disinformation. So I think it's pretty important to consider to what extent the Internet is a disinfosphere.
It's easy to see with a little thought experiment. Imagine some group you really hate, just the farthest out there fringe of fucked up examples of humanity. Maybe it's the guys over at Free Republic, or Westboro Church, whatever, just imagine the most fucked up people you can. The consider how their insanity and stupidity is reinforced by the websites that they frequent - rather than get any information that would move them to a more reasonable understanding of the world, they seek out the information that confirms them in their biases.
Of course, we all do this. After all, the article I just posted was from Counterpunch and not Fox News. But that is also the point. In addition to creating new expressions of information, the Internet also creates new expressions of bigotry, hatred and generalized stupidity. It creates disinformation. So I think it's pretty important to consider to what extent the Internet is a disinfosphere.