Disinformation,The Bane of an Era.

[Stoic Guardian]

Rather than the term "Modern" people have started to dub this the Information era. A more appropriate and specific name i believe, seeing as how at one point every era is the modern era.

On thing I've realized as an adolescent is the huge amount of infromation and exhange of ideas that is avaliable, previously because of the printing press, then the telegraph, tellphone, radio and television.
Which is now avaliable on the internet for virtually anyone to access... and contribute to. Information in the past was of a differant affair, many people were not literate and the people who tended to write the histories numbers were in relation to the general population quite small. Now i'm not claiming anything negative about this, but simply stating the orignal exclusive like nature of documented information.

Today as long as they have access to a computer and are literate (enough) people can post or read information on the web, interacting with anyone else with connection to the internet. The masses as now free to post as much information/disinformation as they wish. Now i'm not claiming that the more ancient and classical histories were never fallen to disinformation but now the process has expanded exponentially.

In fact disinformation can be brought about either through an intentional lie, or a sincire but untrue piece of information.

For as many places as there is consensus on the internet (either for positive or negative beliefs), their is places of heated discussions (often devolving into insults rather than reasonable counter-arguments).

In short though we have relatively easy access to information today more ever than before, we also have much more disinformation to sift through than ever before.

[SIATD v2]

In fact disinformation can be brought about either through an intentional lie, or a sincire but untrue piece of information.

I would say sincere but untrue information is misinformation, not disinformation.

In short though we have relatively easy access to information today more ever than before, we also have much more disinformation to sift through than ever before.

True, and critically most people have never, ever, ever, ever been taught the skills necessary to separate good info from bad. This is one of the reasons you get so many people believing insane things, like the idea that they should give money to some Nigerian preacher on the TV...

[Stoic Guardian]

I would say sincere but untrue information is misinformation, not disinformation.

Either way...

[Dan~]

It's good when the media is decentralized.

When only a few people can read it's easier to control them because there are less.

Controlling a large amount of people is hard. But if you can send them all the same message it's easier.

[lizbethrose]

Dan~, will you please get rid of the tube kitty! It's distracting and I feel sorry for it.--Please--

Disinformation is especially prevalent in politics. It's used by both parties. An obvious example is Palin's iteration of a "death panel" in the Health Care Act. It doesn't exist, nor has it ever. But some people still believe it. More insidious examples are when Congress people use numbers--particularly dollar figures--to 'prove' something, but use differing figures. There seems to be a lack of understanding among the voters, for example, about the difference between corporate taxes and personal taxes, or between taxes on the rich and taxes on the middle-class and/or poor.

I don't think sincerity has much to do with disinformation/misinformation. Every politician will sincerely believe in the 'truth' of her/his allegations. It's the 'proof' offered that needs to be questioned.

If a politician says, for example, "The proof is in the numbers" check the bases for those numbers, first, then check the numbers.

Half-truths are the worst, since they're only partially true. But how many people go beyond what they believe to examine a half-truth as a whole truth.

The world is the people in it. I really don't know how to use the internet as a tool against mediocrity.

[xhightension]

As more and more information emits into society, the average individual becomes more and more lazy. More information = more thoughts with indecision.