I’ve been much amused by a story on the Web about idiots. For those who haven’t been following it, it was reported online and in the press that in a so-called keynote lecture I stated that the Internet is full of idiots. This is not true. The lecture was on an entirely different subject, but it demonstrates how news becomes distorted when it circulates among newspapers and the Internet.
The story about idiots came up at a press conference when, in answer to some question or other, I made a purely commonsense observation. Out of the planet’s seven billion inhabitants there’s an inevitable number of idiots, many of whom used to communicate their ravings to friends or relatives at a bar, so their opinions were confined to a limited circle. A substantial number of these people now can express their opinions on social networks. Such opinions therefore reach large audiences, and merge with the many other opinions expressed by reasonable people.
Please note that my notion of idiots contained no racist connotations. No one, with a few exceptions, is an idiot by profession, but someone who is an excellent grocer, an excellent surgeon, or an excellent bank clerk can say some silly things about matters he knows nothing about, or has given insufficient thought to. Reactions on the Internet are immediate, with no time for reflection.
It’s right that the Internet should allow space for those with nothing sensible to say, but the excess of stupidity is clogging the lines. And certain unseemly reactions I have seen on the Internet confirm my reasonable contention. Indeed, someone reported me as saying that the Internet gives the same prominence to the opinions of a fool and those of a Nobel Prize winner, and suddenly there was a pointless discussion that went viral over whether or not I’d have accepted the Nobel Prize—without anyone going off to check Wikipedia. All of this shows to what degree people are inclined to talk without pausing to think. In any event, the number of idiots can now be quantified: at least 300 million. Wikipedia is reported to have lost 300 million users in recent times. These are all surfers who no longer use the Internet to find information, but prefer to stay online chatting with their peers, and probably without pausing to think.
The normal Internet user ought to be capable of grasping the difference between incoherent and well-articulated ideas, and here the problem of filtering information arises. It doesn’t relate just to opinions expressed in blogs or via Twitter, but is an urgent question for all websites, where you can find information that is reliable and useful, but also—and I defy anyone to deny it—ravings of every kind, accounts of nonexistent conspiracies, Holocaust denial, racism, and information that is culturally false, inaccurate, or slipshod.
How do you filter information? Each of us has the capacity to filter information when we look at websites that deal with topics we know about, but I for one would have a hard time telling whether or not a website on string theory is accurate. Not even schools can teach pupils how to filter information, since teachers are in the same position as I am, and those who teach Greek are likely to find themselves defenseless when they look at a site on catastrophe theory or the Thirty Years’ War.
There is only one solution. Newspapers are often slaves to the Internet, as that is where they gather news and stories that sometimes turn out to be false, thus giving voice to their major rival—and doing so always later than the Internet. Instead, they ought to devote at least two pages each day to an analysis of websites, in the same way they review books or films, pointing out the sites that are virtuous and reporting those that carry bogus stories and inaccuracies. They’d be providing a valuable public service and might even persuade those many Internet users who are turning away from newspapers to return to them.
To launch an enterprise such as this, a newspaper would need a team of analysts, many of whom would have to come from outside. It would cost money, but would provide a valuable cultural service and give the press a new purpose.
2015