Internet mistakes cause discrepancies

By John Ostrowski

If you didn’t already know, it is fairly difficult to get a book published. There are a lot of people with written pieces who want to make them into books and put them on the market. On the other hand, there are not very many publishers, and all of who are looking to make investments that will yield returns. The publishers aren’t always looking for the best piece of writing; they will publish a poorly written piece of garbage if it will sell well (i.e. “The DaVinci Code”).

There is also a form of publishing that allows even the common man to get his book out there: on-demand publishing, whereby a publishing house takes your work and publishes a few copies, and leaves all the legwork (pitching, advertising, etc.) to you.

And then, of course, there is the ultimate form of on-demand publishing: the Internet. Well, technically, that wouldn’t be on-demand publishing, more like on-supply publishing. The vast majority of stuff on the Internet is not in demand, but there are more than enough people willing to supply it. Sometimes, people just want to get their opinion out there, regardless of how well articulated, logical, or intelligent it is. Other times, people seem only to publish online because they want to be the most intelligent person on the Internet. Unfortunately, both of these motives can result in less than ideal situations.

Take, for example, the online user who just wants his opinion out there. That’s fine, unless it’s presented as fact. Take Wikipedia, for example. John Seigenthaler, an administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy in the 60’s, recently wrote an article for “USA Today” because he said that his Wikipedia biography was categorically untrue. In said biography, it was alleged that he was involved in the assassination of both Robert and John F. Kennedy. Seigenthaler denied these claims and went on to allege that Wikipedia was an irresponsible site, and that their editors (thousands of them, all but one are volunteers) were not up to the task of correcting mistakes such as the one in his biography.

Since I’ve known about it, I’ve used Wikipedia. It has a wealth of knowledge, and the fact that information can be posted and edited by absolutely anyone bothered me much less than it should have. I, too, have found mistakes on Wikipedia, but they are usually overt jokes, and are fixed by my next visit. The question is, for every overt purposeful untrue statement, how many slip under our radar? Unfortunately, there really is no way to know, and Wikipedia should not be used as someone’s only source.

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And then there is the problem of the power-hungry poster. They want to be the best, fastest and smartest on the web. These can include journalists and full-time bloggers. Many of them are good at what they do and incredibly honest about it. I only frequent one blog, but whenever information is posted from somewhere else, it is quoted, attributed and there is a link provided. But clearly, other bloggers are not so nice. Otherwise, three blogs: Guido Fawkes, Recess Monkey and Tim Worstall wouldn’t be introducing a Press Plagiarist of the Year Award (as reported by the BBC).

The award is set up to basically humiliate (and probably rightfully so) the major plagiarists on the web. These include journalists and bloggers who simply lift material from other sites and blogs, and pass it off as their own or with little attribution.

There is really no remedy for this, other than the discouargment of these questionable practices by other internet users. As bad as plagiarism and falsehoods can be, there is really no need for the government to step in. Since its inception, people have constantly been advising skepticism when it comes to anything related to the Internet. However, in a day and age when people can write an entire research paper without ever leaving their desk, this is easily forgotten, and people might look to the authorities to remedy the problem of unreliability in order to prevent having to do a little extra work.

However, the Internet has been specifically exempted from several laws targeting speech (especially political speech) and it remains an incredibly free and open medium of expression. First amendment principles are best reflected on the Internet, and there is no need to change that.

John Ostrowski is a junior in communications. His column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached at features@dailyillini .com.