Brave.Net.World: the Internet as a disinformation superhighway?

Abstract

1. Overture: the problem Nobody could seriously doubt that the unidirectional mass media can be very powerful instruments of disinformation. History has already witnessed too many horrible events for us to allow ourselves the luxury of such futile speculation any longer. What we might do instead is to turn our attention to the brave new world of the Internet, and ask whether the problem of disinformation might soon afflict the new interactive media as well. Suppose that in years to come there will still be a significant dissimilarity between passive (one way, or ‘W’) and interactive (two way, or ‘WW’) media. The management of information online is going to affect many aspects of our life with increasing regularity, and the following three questions will become crucial: