Today, I read an article entitled, "All Is Fair in Love and Twitter" where a New York Times writer chronicles the creation of Twitter. My first reaction to the article was, "how does the author know so much about the details of what went on between the founders of the Twitter site?" To answer this question, I referred to "Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources" and followed the steps to determine the source of this information and analyze the credibility of the author.
A Google search was necessary to learn more about the author, Nick Bilton, in order to determine the his credibility based what types of articles he has written previously. Mr. Bilton is a regular contributor to the New York Times and therefore, I would tend to believe that he would be a fairly credible resource on the topics that he writes about as it would unlikely that he could maintain a long-term relationship with the New York Times if he were not credible.
The Google search brought up Mr. Bilton's upcoming book release on Amazon, "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal", which is the book on which the article is based. The book is due to be released on November 5th. The description eludes to fact the Mr. Bilton had access to a great deal of resources to confirm the story that he is telling about Twitter, but without he book having been released yet, it was impossible to find the details of where the information originated. More concrete information regarding the sources for this article would have been helpful in determining the accuracy of the content.
One bit of information about the author, Mr. Bilton, on his Amazon bio states, "Bilton's columns and articles for The New York Times have led to investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Congress." This would lead one to believe that his reporting is in fact very relevant and highly respected. His articles clearly include information that is important rather than simply telling a story for the reader's enjoyment or leisure.
This article is a great example of how impactful unrestricted web publishing through mass media could be as there are situations in "All Is Fair in Love and Twitter" that would definitely damage relationships if they were in fact untrue. For example, the article describes how Jack Dorsey wants to oust his colleague, Noah Glass, but goes about this in a manner that comes across as extremely underhanded and backstabbing. I would hope that if this were in fact true, that both parties were well aware of this prior to this article and book being released. It is incredibly important that news journals maintain a high level of credibility in order to be successful, as readers would not likely continue to choose that particular source for their news if the news reporting agency were consistently allowing reporters to provide articles without any sort of substantiation.
In summary, I find that the article in question is likely factual, however the lack of clearly cited sources does cause the reader to be unclear if it is indeed a true account rather than a fictional story. Based on the author's background and history, I would tend to believe the article to be a true account of how Twitter began.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
How do you know what you know?
How DO you know what YOU know? This is a very profound question, because how can we be sure that we know is real or correct? Do we take the time to verify every bit of information to determine if it is indeed true? As we grow and learn, we gather information and we learn the ability to determine what is true versus false. As children, we might be teased or be fibbed to for entertainment. What would happen if we never learned to differentiate this from facts?
Have you ever heard of Snipe Hunting? If you haven't heard of Snipe Hunting, the storyteller builds up the interest by describing the animal to be mystical or magical -- perhaps like a type of furry animal akin to a raccoon. The hunting goes like this, one person is told to stand in the forest with a bag ready to capture the Snipe, while the other hunter (storyteller) goes to find the Snipe and plans to chase it into the bag. Reality is that the storyteller leaves the naive Snipe Hunter in the forest holding the bag, while they head home holding their belly as they laugh about tricking the other to stand in the woods and wonders how long they will really stand there holding the bag before giving up as there is no such thing as a Snipe.
How many kids are told these tales or even taken into the woods to hunt for the mysterious Snipe? After this sort of trickery, one might become more suspicious of what others are telling them. They might take more time to consider if what they are being told is in fact true.
Snipe hunting might be showing my age as we don't see many posts on Facebook that mention Snipe hunting, but how many of us post a little fib on April 1st to celebrate April Fool's Day? <sheepishly raising hand here> I do, I do! This past April, I posted that I'd accepted a position in Hong Kong with my current employer and would be relocating my family to Asia. I could not believe how many people believed what I'd written. I received congratulations on my new position for MONTHS. Even my own mother was sure that I was moving to the other side of the globe. This goes to show just how much people believe what they read on social media.
Now what did I learn on Social Media today? I learned that many people were extremely unimpressed with the New England Patriots performance and many other people were thrilled with the Pittsburgh Pirates performance. By reading these posts, I never needed to check the scores. It was easy to deduce that the Patriots lost the game against Cincinnati and the Pirates won their game, without having to verify this information as fact. This is making a determination of fact or fiction based on the opinions or comments of the masses. When several people post about the same topic, I am apt to believe it to be true -- especially when it comes to sports as it is a black and white topic -- either the team won or lost.
My Facebook news feed is heavily skewed to New England and western Pennsylvania, so I can usually rely on social media for the outcomes of sporting events in Boston or Pittsburgh. Now, if I need to know about St. Louis or Miami, I would have to seek out that information as it would not be readily available to me.
Now to answer the question, how do I know what I know to be true? Either I believe the masses or I verify or confirm the facts. For some topics, no verification is need, such as local sports, for other topics it is necessary. If it's April 1st, believe nothing. Verify everything.
Have you ever heard of Snipe Hunting? If you haven't heard of Snipe Hunting, the storyteller builds up the interest by describing the animal to be mystical or magical -- perhaps like a type of furry animal akin to a raccoon. The hunting goes like this, one person is told to stand in the forest with a bag ready to capture the Snipe, while the other hunter (storyteller) goes to find the Snipe and plans to chase it into the bag. Reality is that the storyteller leaves the naive Snipe Hunter in the forest holding the bag, while they head home holding their belly as they laugh about tricking the other to stand in the woods and wonders how long they will really stand there holding the bag before giving up as there is no such thing as a Snipe.
How many kids are told these tales or even taken into the woods to hunt for the mysterious Snipe? After this sort of trickery, one might become more suspicious of what others are telling them. They might take more time to consider if what they are being told is in fact true.
Snipe hunting might be showing my age as we don't see many posts on Facebook that mention Snipe hunting, but how many of us post a little fib on April 1st to celebrate April Fool's Day? <sheepishly raising hand here> I do, I do! This past April, I posted that I'd accepted a position in Hong Kong with my current employer and would be relocating my family to Asia. I could not believe how many people believed what I'd written. I received congratulations on my new position for MONTHS. Even my own mother was sure that I was moving to the other side of the globe. This goes to show just how much people believe what they read on social media.
Now what did I learn on Social Media today? I learned that many people were extremely unimpressed with the New England Patriots performance and many other people were thrilled with the Pittsburgh Pirates performance. By reading these posts, I never needed to check the scores. It was easy to deduce that the Patriots lost the game against Cincinnati and the Pirates won their game, without having to verify this information as fact. This is making a determination of fact or fiction based on the opinions or comments of the masses. When several people post about the same topic, I am apt to believe it to be true -- especially when it comes to sports as it is a black and white topic -- either the team won or lost.
My Facebook news feed is heavily skewed to New England and western Pennsylvania, so I can usually rely on social media for the outcomes of sporting events in Boston or Pittsburgh. Now, if I need to know about St. Louis or Miami, I would have to seek out that information as it would not be readily available to me.
Now to answer the question, how do I know what I know to be true? Either I believe the masses or I verify or confirm the facts. For some topics, no verification is need, such as local sports, for other topics it is necessary. If it's April 1st, believe nothing. Verify everything.
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