floonine

I have noticed that, if for personal gain or to work through a discussion, a lot of people use sources from the internet more and more these days. In regards to politics or world events it is easy to justify these actions; with so much relying on ratings and quantity of information in the entertainment industry its difficult to believe anything you see on TV or read in the paper.

But the problem I am curious about is the amount of validity in the sources that we believe are "non-partisan" in the way they report... some people believe cnn.com, some people will only go to the BBC to get information, some will even go to outside, previously un-noticed, sources to get information... but who is telling the truth?

For some people, me included, looking at the beginning of Fox's news network it wasn't difficult to believe that they really were without affiliation to the information they would report, but look at the joke it has become. Why were we able to see Fox News as a joke? Mostly because we had something to base our skeptism off of, and most of it from the internet.

If you haven't read 1984, one function of the fictional government that the book was based around was to take any old book, document, etc that contained information that would damage the reputation of the aforementioned govenment and alter it. The possibility of doing something like that in the real world's physical media is difficult to imagine, and even harder to do (taking in account all the different books, magazine, newspapers, etc that would have to be hunted down and recalled), but information online could all be changed or destroyed. Anything that someone wouldn't want someone else to see could be altered or eradicated in mere seconds. For me that is a perfect reason to stop and double check the lies that might have slipped through.

How about you?

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Political arguments do not exist, after all, for people to believe in them, rather they serve as a common, agreed-upon excuse. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest and finish finally and infamously as heretics.

Mephisto2

Rely upon mainsteam media?

I recommend the book Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward S Herman.

Take all information on the web with a pinch of salt, especially if it comes from unreliable sources.

Mr Mephisto

Jasmar

you should take all news with a grain of salt, there is no such thing as a non biased source and you should always keep that in mind, just know that what was reported probably wasn't exactly how it happend

BentNotTwisted

I usually take all news for entertainment rather than a representation of fact. I am extremely skeptical of the information available to us from the mainstream media. Perhaps I've read a bit too much Noam Chomsky.
Regarding 1984, it would be difficult, but on impossible, for a government to go out on the internet and change or erase every reference to a given topic. Especially controvercial topics where there are a lot of dissenting opinions. IMO it would take a totalitarian world government to achieve something like this and even then you would have rebels trying to get the word out that it was happening.

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IS THAT IT ???!!!
Do you even know what 'it' is?

When the last man dies for just words that he said... We Shall Be Free

heyal256

I agree but also note that for the real story you need to read many different articles about the same event, then you can filter out all the bias and form your own opinion as to what "really" happened. you know how the old saying goes..... "there are 3 sides to every story, your side, their side, and then the truth". Just remember that this doesn't apply to politics because there seem to be a million sides to every story.