“Social Media” news sites are swiftly becoming the tabloids of the 21st century, exemplified by dumb posts like this, as well as the latest example of linkbaiting from Techcrunch. For example, I feel that there’s a big, gaping hole in the world of tech news and information. I find myself turning more and more to Google Tech Talks (and now FLOSS Weekly thanks to Conor) for straight up nerd material, rather than this frenetic depthlessness encapsulated by the plethora of ADD-fuelled “new media” information streams like Mashable, TechCrunch, Tweetmeme, etc. Several of these are ostensibly technology news sites, but have a barrage of worthless VC cruft or net-celeb drivel. Where have the tech journals gone? I had a casual Twitter conversation on the subject with Michele Neylon, a well known technophile in Irish tech circles, who agreed there was little on offer in the way of particularly good tech news and information sites.
Posts like those above are read by tens of thousands, horrifyingly maybe even millions of people, all of whom are getting this same blasé, unresearched, sweepingly generalised rubbish. A rare incident of journalism from Techcrunch UK reflects a conversation going on amongst media types that perhaps this “crowdsource news” stuff is a really bad idea (what a revelation). On his show, This Week in Tech, Leo Laporte has frequently speculated that the increasing demand for bleeding-edge news is a dangerous trend towards increased viral misinformation. News, sufficiently interesting, will get passed along, unchecked, within a social trust sphere. Also, Internet information, sufficiently believable, will be quoted as fact by mainstream media.
It must be dismaying to reliable media outlets to see their hard work cheapened in favour of superficial, tabloidian “articles”, the facts of which are usually cherry-picked from traditional media anyway, or worse, simply made up.
What’s really changing is the speed that rumours disseminate at. In that regard, this is simply a mirror of what happens “around the water cooler”, at parties or anywhere else that people talk. What’s new is the audience around that water cooler; instead of five people it’s five million. A made-up story doesn’t change just the hearts and minds of a few, it can change stock market values. As a news and information site with a critical mass you have a duty of care to ensure your system is not misused. Boards.ie, despite not claiming to be a news site of any sort, walks that line between allowing expression and curtailing malice every day. This is only possible because of the overwhelming good will of most of the userbase, and the tireless efforts of the (volunteer) moderators.
The increasing inter connectivity of Internet citizens is bringing plenty of new challenges, not least of which is the pursuit of truth. Information disseminates so quickly now that it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not, as long as it’s fast and interesting (read: controversial). In the frenzy to be first, harmful lies can spread like wildfire through the modern media jungle, wreaking havoc before anyone even really knows what happened. It sounds terribly dramatic, but we may be on the cusp of a global mob mentality, a superculture activated and defined by extremes. People are starting to wonder aloud why we need news companies when we tend to get the information from each other before they do.
It’s getting to the point where journalism as an institution is being questioned. While it may be that the concept of the huge corporate newsroom is (perhaps) seeing the end of it’s days, journalism as an institution is still utterly vital, perhaps more now than ever. Social media sites that rely on a thin line of advertising revenue and clickthrough are going to be concerned with quantity and speed, eschewing quality. In-depth, well researched news would become a thing of the past if genuine, honest-to-god journalism died out; or at least become the realm of the philantropist-backed or hobbyist outlet.
Realistically, I don’t think that day will ever come. How can it? Anonymous or citizen journalism is unreliable by the very nature of anonymity. Additionally, a normal “citizen” aka Joe Soap has nothing to lose from being the source of inaccurate news. Virtually anonymous review sites offer little in the way of credible information. There needs to be “worth” of some sort attached to a source for it to be reliable and trustable. I think that modern news and information companies need to be careful not to hop on the bandwagon too eagerly and in the process devalue their brand. Yes, there is a place for anonymity, the rumourmill, the backchannel, but this needs to be seen for what it is, an evolution of these – literally ancient – channels of communication. News/information channels and data channels should not become any more intermingled than they already are. There is an important distinction between data and information, one which was impressed upon me by one of my former lecturers, Dr. Markus Helfert, and one which I believe can be applied to this scenario.
I doubt there’s any disclosure required here, but I will point out a bias beforehand since I do happen to work for Boards.ie 
. I feel that the move spearheaded by the community managers Darragh Doyle and Dav Waldron to facilitate companies who wish to interact directly with the Boards.ie populace is a powerful step in the right direction for online interaction. In Ireland, a Boards.ie account becomes a bit of an Internet passport under the right circumstances (ie, with enough personal investment of time, content and relationships). For a company, it’s nearly a trial by fire to be one of the select few who have the open-minded progressiveness to last as an “official” voice there. There is a transparency of operation and agendaless, perhaps slightly revolutionary vibe from the founders of the site. There is a fierce mistrust of salespeople and “shills” which is endemic to the user culture. As far as I’m concerned, any company who understands this enough to attempt to build a bridge there is very well clued in.
I think we’ve been moving towards this for a long time now with the likes of Google, Flickr, Amazon, and other powerful new Internet brands, but trust and worth are going to become more and more of an issue as the number of people on the Internet increases, far beyond the scope of financial transactions. As the value of widespread misinformation increases, so too will the value of reliable information.
Update: Excellent related article written by Clay Shirky that I just came across via @eamonnfallon.
