Assessing the value of information from the Internet

There are about 10 billion pages of information on the internet. Many of them are rubbish. Many are valuable and reliable. How do you tell one from the other? Internet pages can be created by anyone. Many are anonymous. Unlike printed resources, webpages often have no editor or manager to control the quality and accuracy of information.

Here are some criteria and tips that help establish the credentials of a web page:

1. Domain - domains containing .edu are certified educational institutional institutions. They are likely to be reliable, professional and accurate. Australian sites (.au) are more likely to be believable when discussing Australian matters. Government (.gov) sites are official national documents, and can usually be expected to be carefully edited and error-checked. Of course, you would need to be on your guard when government sites discussed issues in which the country had a vested interest (see below)! Military sites (.mil) would also be very carefully checked before publication, but you would never expect complete openness and honesty from them because they have secrecy obligations.

2. Attribution - a page acknowledges its sources of information - people, sites, books etc.

3. Contact information - an anonymous author who cannot be contacted is less credible than one who can be contacted.

4. Up-to-date content - good pages include the date they were last modified. A recent date gives confidence that the page is being actively updated and that its information is timely. Of course, the importance of timeliness depends on the nature of the information on the page. A page discussing Queen Elizabeth I's foreign policy would not need to be updated regularly, but a page on developments in IT would need changing frequently to stay up to date.

5. Vested interests - if a person has a personal or commercial reason for being concerned about an issue, they are said to have a vested interest. This often applies in cases where a person may profit or suffer from the issue. e.g. a reporter who owns shares in a company can benefit by writing articles that promote the company. A person who runs a hotel would have a vested interest in opposing new hotel taxes. The mother of a child with a particular illness may be quite emotional about that illness. Many reputable newspapers, TV advice shows and websites will indicate whether an author or information presenter could be considered to have a vested interest in a topic. e.g. "The author is a registered financial advisor and a shareholder in XYZ Corporation." or "The author has no political affiliation with any the parties discussed in this article." or "The presenter is an employee of XYZ Corporation." In the legal system, a judge is expected to indicate if they cannot be impartial about a case because of a vested interest (e.g. the accused is a relative, or they receive payment from an organisation that is being tried.)

Such information lets a reader or viewer judge the information in the light of possible vested interests or conflicts of interest.

Naturally, one would expect an organisation to be biased in favour of its own products. You are never likely to see a Holden page say, "While our new Commodore is quite good, we recommend you buy a Fairlane."

Secret vested interests are the most worrying form. Many webmasters get paid to send visitors to certain sites or buy certain products, and they often do not disclose this when they recommend the sites or products.

6. Spelling, grammar, punctuation - a page that is filled with errors often indicates a careless or unskilled writer. It also indicates a lack of editing or proofreading by responsible people or organisations. Poor language skills alone do not necessarily mean the author is unintelligent or unknowledgeable about a topic, but they should make a reader wonder about the amount of care that has been put into the accuracy of facts on the page.

7. Nationality - if you know a wepage is produced by an organisation in a particular country, or an author from a certain place, you can sometimes guess when their information is likely to be biased. Your evaluation of a webpage discussing the Iraqi war would be greatly affected if you knew the author was in America or Iraq.

8. Affiliations - many authors belong to political, religious or social organisations that give an indication of where their sympathies and antipathies lie, e.g. A Roman Catholic discussion abortion, a Labor Party member discussing the election, a worker for Amnesty International discussing Chinese laws.

While some people can still be truly impartial in spite of firmly-held beliefs, most people's opinions are swayed by their beliefs. If they make no secret of their affiliations on a webpage, it shows they are not likely to be be trying to deceive you into believing they are impartial and you can read their information with their likely biases in mind. e.g. "While I have worked for Holden for many years, I still honestly believe their products are superior to..." or "It dismays me that the government has not moved to improve the terrible conditions of chickens raised in battery farms. As a vegetarian, I..."