The topic of trusted sources has been on my mind for quite some time. The information available to us is growing at an unimaginable pace. So how do one know what information can be trusted and what not? This is tricky and there isn’t an universal way of telling good quality information from bad and misleading one.
Some companies like Twitter choose to “certify” accounts as being someone’s true identity. This helps but is in most cases not enough. Other sites like TrustPilot allow people to review organisations and services. This also helps but these reviews are often manipulated and you nave to spend a lot of time reading to know more. Most people end up just looking at the star rating which isn’t really much better than going with your gut feel.
So what’s t do? The majority of us will learn by trial and error. We will make mistakes and over time we will discard some sources of information over others. However this could cost us quite a lot in money and time. There must be a better way?!
I have been thinking about this problem for a long time and while I don’t have all the answers I believe there is a case for a global register for trusted sources of information. This will be an organisation similar to UNESCO or WHO which comprises representatives from most countries in the world and looks after certifying sources of information and maintaining their trust index over time.
This isn’t something that can happen overnight and will take a long time to establish and become useful. However given the massive expansion of information and information sources it becomes increasingly urgent to give a good indication to people as to how much they can trust a given source. This should reduce many types of scams and misinformation and what has recently become known as fake news.
