DailyPost 1152
UNSUBSTANTIATED INFORMATION
It is the irony of the Information Age that most information that circulates in the public domain is unsubstantiated. The types of such information can cross any number of types we intend to create for that purpose. The most important reason being the near desperate urge to prove oneself right, through hook or by crook and to prove oneself super successful when there is no achievement in your name, even partial or truncated. Even with this urge and concomitant information pushed in the public domain the reader could have made some sense out of it, had it been substantiated.
There are two issues here. One is opinion put forth as facts in simple matter of fact statements. The second being the pre-decided agenda made out to be as facts by substantiating with data which is suspect. The other even graver challenge is that in large number of cases the origin of the message / text / information is unknown. The social media has become the proverbial Wild West of information.
Until and unless this problem is sorted out, the humungous information in the World Wide Web besides the enterprise / government / institution emanated from official digital sources might not be put to proper use. With the technology platforms not taking the responsibility of what is being hosted on them, any sanity expected to happen in near future seems to be a far cry. How public information is to be created, hosted, curated and disseminated will decide the fate of information usage and its utility in the days to come.
The way Wikipedia handles, edits and controls information on its platform and also makes known the quality of authenticity of it, can be one way of moving forward. If the technology platforms which IT behemoths use as money minting tool mind, the same technology will find technical solutions to its dynamic, real time substantiation. Even if it takes some time, effort and money, it is undoubtedly worth it. Imagine food and drugs hitting the market without the existence of Food and Drug Administration. Food for thought.
WORLD IS STILL TO FATHOM OUT WHICH WORLD IS BETTER, THE INFORMATION STARVED ONE OR THE PRESENT UNSUBSTANTIATED ONE.
Sanjay Sahay