Was he talking about all internet content or just the content Muslims read?
He was speaking broadly about the internet. Whether he intended that, there's no way to be sure. My sense was that he thought there was an unacceptable amount of bad information out there, in general, and that scenario is illustrated by this problem, in particular. But then, that was just my impression.
He also mentioned that there are a couple of new TV stations in that part of the world that broadcast pictures of Palestinians and other "good guys" being ill treated. They play the pictures without commentary, if I heard him correctly, 24/7.
The guy writes for the NYT. It seems reasonable that he would value the editorial judgment of respected, established media. He probably feels the same about the lesser established sources, too.
When we in this country laud the availability of all these new sources, we probably don't think about how the information is received in less sophisticated places. Having been in the computer biz at a time when that was still a novelty, I personally witnessed the phenomenon of people thinking that any info that came out of a computer must be quality info. I was personally involved in printing numbers obtained in the standard way on computer paper so that they would be accepted. It's not a stretch for me to imagine that some student in Yemen might think that, if it's on the internet, it must be fact. |
