On September the 29 at 12:08pm (EST) I got a message on FaceBook, from a woman in Florida. It read,

Hi Stefan, Was You Born in Australia or Birmingham, England. UK?

As you can imagine I was more than a bit curious as to how this woman could have any idea as to birthplace. I sent my answer and waited patiently for a reply.

Is Your birthday 19th December 1971?

Now she had my attention. I know… It’s not that hard to get that kind of info about a person. Still I couldn’t escape a strange feeling that was coming over me, goose bumps and butterflies.

Before I get into that I realise that some of you might need a little back story.

My Mum, step-dad, two half-siblings and I moved to Australia when I was around 3 or 4. My Mum and dad had split up, he stayed in the UK and I never heard from him.

Now I didn’t find out that my step-dad wasn’t my real dad until I was about 13. That was when Mum told me about my Jamaican father. Yep that’s right boys and girls I’m half Jamaican, and damned proud of it too.

So with that in mind you can understand the impact of her next message.

Hi Stefan, Please don’t be suspicious. I Think I Might be your Aunt.

Once I’d picked myself up off the floor, a flood of questions came rushing out. It turns out that her name is Di and she is the yongest of my fathers siblings. I have another aunt and two uncles and both my paternal grandparents are alive.

So Diane and I have been shooting emails back and forth. Almost one a day. I’ve been emailing my 16 year old cousin, who’s name is very similare to mine. He seems cool.

My Mum is now in contact with my Dad after 35 years of silence. It’s freaky but cool. I’m building myself up to telling Di to give him my email address, but I’m not quite ready for that just yet.

Stay tuned, there will be more on this late breaking news.

Peace.

Unlike Wikipedia, it isn’t editable (I mean really, what would be the point?).

So if you’re looking for a page you know was on Wikipedia last time you looked, chances are it will be available on Deletionpedia.

Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, believes that disinformation is one of the major flaws in the Internet and that some system should be developed, he said “…I’d be interested in different organisations labelling websites in different ways”.

On the 14th of September 2008, Tim Berners-Lee gave a speech before the Knight Foundation. He talked about the beginnings of the web and where it was heading. He also outlined a new organisation, The World Wide Web Foundation, which would seek:

• to advance One Web that is free and open,
• to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,
• and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.

The next day he was interviewed by the BBC’s Pallab Ghosh where he discussed the use of the Internet to spread disinformation. “On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable,” he said.

This is quite true, information spreads like wildfire these days, so how can we be sure what we read is the truth?

The simple answer is we can’t.

That is to say that we want someone else to tell us what is true instead of finding the answers for ourselves. We would rather have some “all-seeing, all-knowing” entity to make sure that everything we see and read on the Internet is true. But… Yes there is always a but. Whose version of the truth do we want? Do we want the Creationists or the Evolutionists deciding what is true? Or perhaps some impartial body of scientists and philosophers? Then again we could just leave it up to the community to decide what is right… I mean its not like the community is ever wrong.

All of these options have an inherent problem, they rely on other people to make up your mind for you. The best way to find truth on the Internet is to question. Never take anything you read as gospel. You have to weigh up a lot of different factors; who is giving you the information, what do they have to gain from this point of view, what are other people saying, etc.

If we put the onus back onto the individual instead of calling for the regulators to step in, we might finally end up with population that is able to think critically.