#NotAboutALink: Rethinking Your Source Of Information
There is an increasing misconception about links as a reliable source of information. Many believe having a link to back up an argument or conversation is as good as having facts.
It is expedient to note that every piece of content is guided by perceptions, thoughts, the emotional state of an individual. All though, some contents try to strike a balance, the bias factor can’t be totally ruled out.
Looking into who wrote what, what platform the information was derived from, how credible the platform is and how balanced the information is, may be more beneficial than you know.
The online community should see the web as a bowl of data that contains human thoughts as well as valid topics about various aspects of life that may or may not be reliable. Therefore to understand this requires the need to grasp the main concepts of; Misconception: An idea that a certain school of thought is wrong and has been driven away from the original concept of the idea. In other words, one is said to be committing fallacy if an article is written without valid or sufficient evidence of information or an argument is made without logical reasoning. A fallacious argument may be deceptive by appearing to manipulate or persuade by deception, while others are committed unintentionally due to carelessness or ignorance. An evidence is anything that is obtainable in support of an ideology. Whether the support is strong or weak, as long as it is backed with valid proof not minding the circumstance of the situation upon which the assertion was drafted.
Accepting just about any information as a basis for any argument can be likened to disregard for fact and truth, however, the concept behind the truth and fact is a totally different topic as it depends on the dimension and context of the discussion in which it is related.
In today’s world, technology is a major force in human lives: shaping the way we think and communicate. From online games to online shopping, from online classroom to obtaining online degrees, all of these can be completed by using the internet.
As a Sociologist, I have realised the depth of the internet influence on people’s language, network, values, behavioural pattern, and culture. Giving in to online information without proof begs a lot of questions like; would you stop eating apples just because a health blog said that apples are bad and poisonous or because it is plainly not healthy for human consumption after a long stay at sea before it’s been sold? Would you stop taking can juice because it contains sugar and therefore causes diabetes or because you read an article that it is used as a weapon of mass destruction?. This all boils down to your ability to identify valid news apart from fake news.
Fake News Threat
Fake news is available all around; via web-based networking media, daily papers, radio, even inside blogs. A case of fake news can be a story on “how President Buhari wants to slaughter Igbos” or “President-Elect Donald Trump’s arrangement to expel dark individuals from America”.
Fake news has turned out to be Huge Business, particularly in Nigeria subsequently battling it has turned into an awesome errand for the monsters of online networking like Facebook, Google and the likes.
Be that as it may, a few articles, for example, has demonstrated a few approaches to deal with this social issue through the idea of sharpening pursuers and web clients to reconsider their wellsprings of data.
Data posted on Web Click, the 2016 Web Measurements uncover that Nigeria is among the ten nations with the most Web clients on the planet. 97,210,000 of around 186,879,760 of Nigeria’s population are on the internet (around 52% of our populace) while Facebook gets up to 16 million visitors in Nigeria implying that around 8.6% of Nigerians are on Facebook. Facebook keeps on being under the flame for selling fake news.
So what do we do about fake news? Facebook recently released guidelines for identifying fake news. Among other things, Facebook users were told to be sceptical of headlines, look closely at the URL, research the origin of the news story, look for un-ordinary designing, consider the photographs utilised and assess the dates on the news stories. The internet which serves as a good platform for gaining quick information about any aspect of human life must also be seen as a tool for fact checking, not solely depending on a particular platform for information.
Everyone has an entitlement to their opinion and therefore interpret various environmental circumstances differently. Hence the importance of research cannot be overemphasised. The root meaning of the word “research” can be attributed to these three words; ‘read, search, and research’. This buttresses the essence of empirical research, especially when looking for information online.
We cannot say with absolute certainty that the Internet does good or harm to our existence as humans, but rather, the internet is just like a double-edged sword. Whether it does good or harm to people’s life depends on how it is exploited by us and how it inspires human intelligence.
