Reading Report #1

The report, written by Paul Piper, was in reference to the Internet and how certain websites are not necessarily what they seem. It divided these spurious sites into different groups as well, with all of them falling under the code name of misinformation. Piper was quick to point out, though, that his problem was not with the sites or information that were accidentally wrong, or typos, or unintended omissions. His problem was instead with the sites which contained malicious and intentional misinformation. (82) For instance he compared these faulty sites to a counterfeit twenty dollar bill attempting to feign its way into our United States currency system and pass itself off as real. His research appears very thorough, and he gave numerous examples of these sites. Some of which, in his opinion, were white power sites disguised to seem neutral at first, but under his further review were revealed to be propoganda. One such site was dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., but it contained information about him which was not flattering. He lists all of his misinformation subgroups and gives examples of each, and at the end of his essay even gives information to the reader telling him what he should do if he encounters a site he believes may be fake. (208)


The paper was a bit long for what I was expecting but it was pretty easy to read and I enjoyed it. I think it was appropriate to see in clearly expressed writing what many of us have wanted to say for a long time. I know we have touched on Wikipedia some in class, and that website is something I continually thought about while reading this article. While the information on Wiki appears to gospel to some, including myself, we sometimes forget, or neglect that anyone can post reports on that site. I try not to believe what I hear all the time anyways, and the Internet for me is little different than TV in that respect. I stay glued to ESPN, and I cannot believe half the things they gossip about on there anymore. It is always nice to be given the reminder that what we see or hear all the time is not true, though. Maybe I am different than most though in my indifference to the sites being allowed to stay on the web. I believe in freedom of speech and know it is impossible to fully dissect which sites are real and which are not. For example, my blog was just given the label of a spam blog, which it certainly is not. His detail of all the misinformation types was quite impressive and my favorite category of his was probably the "disinformation" genre, and how we sometimes believe this junk anyways.

Kyle