News Report 5

JJ Cook
Anne Pemberton
Lib 103
Nov 19, 2008


Stone, Brad. 16 Nov. 2008“Online Age Verification for Children Brings Privacy Worries.”16 Nov. 2008. www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/index.html



The internet is a dangerous place for children. We need to keep children safe from sexual predators on the internet. Law enforcement officials have said they want popular sites, like the social networks Myspace and Facebook to confirm the identities and ages of minors. The children with their identities confirmed would then be allowed to talk with other minors, or with adults approved by parents.
Performing age verification is a difficult task. About two dozen companies have came up with systems claiming they can solve the problem.
People against age verification for children say all these firms don't care about protecting the children from sexual predators online but they just want the children's demographic information so tailored advertisements can be pushed on the children.
Mary Willard says it's “particularly upsetting. Age verification companies are selling parents on the premise that they can protect the safety of children online, and they are using this information for market profiling and targeted advertising.”
Eguardian has developed a system to confirm children's identities. With Eguardian people are given the choice to not have any data sent to advertisers, which is the main concern for identity verification haters. These companies are so new it is hard to tell if they are having success. Eguardian has pitched to Myspace and Facebook, which might use it to sign up members younger than the age 13. I believe that these two networking websites need identity verification more than any other website out there.
We need to protect children from sexual predators online. Protecting them from online predators is far more important then trying to protect them from an advertisement about a candy bar. Advertisements are going to be pushed on children through television and every other form of advertising.

Reading Assignment 5

JJ Cook
Anne Pemberton
LIB 103
November 17, 2008
Reading Assignment # 5
How do you know if a website is legitimate, a hoax, or a spoof? There are a lot of websites that are counterfeit, malicous, product ficticous, parodies/spoofs/entertainment, hacks and disinformation. Mistakes are another source of disinformation.
Counterfeit sites are the most serious hoax website. A counterfeit site pretends to be a legitimate site to publicize false information.
All media are susceptible to false facts, this is something internet users need to keep in mind when they both look at news reports. There was an incident in the Associated Press Report about 400 deer in Ohio that shows how gullible news professionals can be when they don't use critical evaluation skills.
Disinformation means “the dissemination of deliberately false information especially when supplied by a government or its agent to a foreign power or the media with the intention of influencing the policies or opinions of those who receive it.”
There are a lot of sites that parody or spoof persons, companies, and organizations. There is very little difference b/w a spoof and a parody. The onion site and the Mankato Minnesota page are popular among parody sites.
The entertainment industry gets a lot of internet misinformation, mainly involving counterfeit stories, scripts, plot exposes, and show endings. This is troubling to the producers who will usually produce alternate endings for shows they feel will produce hoaxes.
On the flip side of the hoax and counterfeit websites “one persons misinformation can be another person's gold mine.” Such sites can offer a different perspective on topics that have a controlling truth.
The amount of misinformation is going to to continue to be on the internet unless the internet is strictly regulated, which is not going to happen any time soon. This would be nearly impossible and is something no one wants. The only way to avoid the misinformation is to question and research its validity every time.

reading assignment 4

JJ Cook
Mrs. Pemberton
Lib 103
November 5, 2008
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has become the internets hottest information source. Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia where anyone from professors to students to non academians can publish information on the website. The open source encyclopedia has received mixed and failing grades. Wikipedia has become one of my favorite sources of information because of the timely information and trivia.
Wikipedia has editors that monitor the information that gets published on the website. Alexander M.C. Halavais, an assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac College performed an experiment on Wikipedia. He deliberately published 13 counts of false information on the website. With in three hours of publishing the false information Wikipedia had erased all of it. This shows that Wikipedia will catch false information. Not all invalid information will be caught by the editors.
The most famous mistake by Wikipedia is the case of John Seigenthaler Sr. A Wikipedia entry said John Seigenthaler Sr. was "thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother, Bobby." This false claim went uncorrected for more than four months. This false information reached other websites such as reference.com and answers. com. John claimed that this ruined his reputation. This case was very damagin to Wikipedia's reputation also
People who support Wikipedia look at the site as a brave new world where scholars can bump heads with the general public. People who are Wikipedia haters say the open source encyclopedia “devalues the notion of expertise itself.” The openness that makes Wikipedia so attracting to its contributors is exactly what turns off scholars. Scholars say the site is error prone. “Wikipedia's worst feature, the co-founder says, is the notion, held by some contributors, 'that non experts should be able to treat with disdain anything an expert says.'” Maybe Wikipedia should focus on quality and not on quantity.
Some scholars feelings on Wikipedia are “if you can't beat em, join 'em.” Other scholars are completely against Wikipedias objectives and one Wikipedian Larry Sanger, one of the co-founders launched a competing website that is strictly for experts