Jon Bon Jovi is not dead

And the Joys of Twitter

Jon Bon Jovi is not dead. It was just a rumour. Along with Tiger Woods, Kevin Bacon, Charlie Sheen, Jackie Chan, Mick Hucknell and Santa Claus he has been been killed on twitter. Beware of breaking news, real or rumour. The Spammers ride on the bow-wave of a buzz or trending topics, in a dark art known as SEO poisoning. SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a dark enough art in itself. SEO is a bag of tricks to make your page rank better on a search engine results page. The creator of phishing scams and writers of malware (bad software) have exploited big happenings with links and content that people are itching to click. An example was links to sites for giving to the victims of the Japanese Tsunami, some of these where scams another example was supposed links to a video of Osama Bin Laden's death. (Sophos Mid-Year Security Threat Report, Sophos 2011)

Social networks such as Twitter has been shown to be a rumour mill, however rumours can be quickly quashed. It is wisdom of the crowds versus madness of the crowds. This was shown in the summer riots, where Twitter was not the villain it was portrayed as at the time. Research carried out by the Guardian and LSE showed that tweets played a much more important role the clean up than it did in spreading the unrest. Social networks where a crucial component in the Arab spring, and David Cameron actually toyed with the idea of turning it all off, just like Arab dictators tried to do.

The other Twitter palaver this year was the super injunction fiascos. Revelations spread via twitter undermined the courts attempts to keep the dirty secrets of the rich and famous, secret. Wikileaks also embarrassed the powerful.

The result of more open and transparent society means all are free to perpetuate whatever information they want. The result is that in the information overload, alongside the truth are garbage and misinformation. Crucial for discerning online information is digital judgment which involves old fashioned skills in critical thinking. Technology has a role in blocking and filtering, but, there is also a need for educators to filter feed and teach other to do the same.

November 2011
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