Real life situation.

Hoax on the internet about bomb

blast in Pakistan

Personally I was frightened and

panicked

The first questions that came to my

mind were all about my family would

be, how bad is the disaster? What can

I do to help ? Are my aunts,

grandparents and all dead?

RLS continued.

It’s significant to me because I use the internet 24/7 and

read a lot of news and information from it.

It makes me doubt whether what I am reading is a joke as

well ?

Knowledge Issues.

To what extent should we trust everything we read on the internet ? (this is the one I am investigating)

How can the spreading of false news be stopped on the internet ?

To what extent should we trust the internet?

The knowledge question is related to my first knowledge issue. It helps me

investigate the reliability of the information on the internet.

Ways of Knowing.

Reason: Reason allows us to go beyond the immediate experience of our senses. It is closely linked to logic, the deducing of

valid conclusions from the starting points or the premises.. Reason as a way of knowing allows me to understand how my

reaction to the situation was reasonably correct and how logically the act of spreading false news on the internet is wrong.

Emotion: Emotion is the product of natural processes with physiological causes and effects. There is somewhat

emotion present when dealing with the internet. Emotion as a way of knowing allows me evaluate that my reaction

was wrong and instead I should have seen beyond the emotional barriers.

Ways of knowing,

evidence and

counterclaims.

Reason: A counter claim for this claim is that it can be seen from a rational perspective too. According to Tina Su, a

famous researcher on technology the internet can be helpful in daily life as a means for communication and

marketing and more recently also for things like online degrees and online banking etc. This contradicts the

conclusion my claim gave me, my counterclaim supports the side that the internet is very beneficial to us and can be

trusted.

Emotion: According to data by John Alexander, humans have a tendency to rely on something that “seems” reliable.

This happens because the internet “exploits” our emotions and makes us confused about the meaning of something.

A counterclaim to this claim is that even though emotions can be exploited and lead to misinterpretation, in other

situations they give us the feeling of being human and help us judge situations in a way that reason can not.

Areas of Knowledge.

Ethics : according to the Tok course guide, Ethics is acting in a

principled way, which involves honesty, fairness an

responsibility. Ethics is a part of this knowledge claim, because

it is ethically wrong to spread false news on the internet,

something that everyone can see, it can create confusion in the

mind of people, can create doubt of what to trust and like it did

in my situation it could make the person panic.

Counter claim: Its is ethically wrong to spread false news on the

internet, where it is available to almost everyone. However it is

also ethically right when the internet helps millions of people in

their daily life and jobs and when it makes people stay close to

each other when far. The counter claim answers my KQ in the

totally opposite way then my claim does, it tells us that the

internet is trustable because it does things that are ethically

correct

This helps me reach a mini conclusion which is that the internet

can be both ethically wrong and right, its just a matter of

perspective

Perspectives. (Parents)

The increasing usage of the internet has made many parents worried about their children. According to a study by

THE ANNENBERG PUBLIC POLICY CENTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, about 75%

parents worry that their children might view sexually explicit objects online or might give out personal

information.

This evidence supports my claim about internet reliability, these parents fear because the internet is

unreliable, the people with anonymous ID’s on the internet can be harmful. One of the few famous cases

for cyber bullying includes one that happened in 2012, where a girl called Amanda was blackmailed for a

picture of topless picture that she gave away In seventh grade when video calling and looking for friends,

she hanged her self a month after posting a video of her experience using flash cards.

Personally I believe that it is the parents right to worry when their child uses the internet, because just like

any other piece of technology the internet is both good and bad, and has a limit to it. A child at a young

age does not have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong or in this case reliable and

unreliable. Just like Amanda as she flashed her breasts when the stranger manipulated her, she didn't’t

know if it was right or wrong.

Perspective (Teacher)

As we have taken a step into the 21st century, the internet has started to become a increasingly larger part of our lives,

and the most recent place where it’s use is increasing is in schools.

According to a research by The British Journal of Educational Technology it has been hard for teachers to

keep up with the dynamic change to the era of internet, one of the biggest problems is of plagiarism, here is a

example more personal to me. Here in GNIS, one of the main things we are taught not to do is to plagiarize

which means to steal someone else’s work or ideas, which is why citations exist, they show that you are giving

someone credit for their idea or work that you have used. To track and spot out plagiarism in the students

work, more and more schools including GNIS are using the program called Turn it in.

Also some teachers at my school teach us what is good and what is poor information, some basics include to

check for the reputation and experience of the writer or composer and also see what website it is from, for

example wikipedia.com is counted as an unreliable source because anyone can write there, unlike a scholarly

pdf document with credentials.

This is related to my knowledge issue because it shows us the internet can be used for theft as well because

an idea or work is worth a lot of time and money. Relating to the RLS I can conclude that from a teachers

perspective the Internet is dynamic and can easily manipulative, it can be used for things such as academic

dishonesty and could also lead the student in the wrong direction. This proposes a solution, which is to inform

the future generations, and teach them to differentiate between reliable and unreliable information on the

internet.

Perspective (Personal)

Personally I think that the internet depending on what website the information is generally very reliable. However

there is some unreliable information on the net as well.

What I think is that we should learn and teach how to find the good and ignore the bad.

We shouldn’t blindly trust the internet because it is something created and also used by humans.

There should be an age limit of the students or children that can use the internet, and if there is an objection to this

idea, children lower than a certain age should be supervised when using the internet.

The ability of distinguishing between the truth and the false should be taught in schools, and so should the right use

of the internet, as it worries parents what their kids might do on the internet.

Conclusion

In conclusion I investigated the knowledge question of whether or not we should trust the internet.

To support my knowledge claim I used Reason and Emotion as the ways of knowing and Ethics as

the area of knowledge. I have also shown different perspectives of my knowledge claim, to show a

range of opinions. From my investigation I conclude that the internet is a global and dynamic, there

is a lot of information on it that Is unreliable and probably made up information, which might have

misguided and mislead many, however if seen reasonably instead of emotionally I will also

conclude that the internet has helped us in many ways and has made our lives easier than before,

and it does have a lot of reliable information as well. Which is why I will put my statement this

way” We cannot trust the internet to some extent, because it does have pieces of unreliable

information; however it also has reliable information, it is a matter of ability that could get us

tangled between the wires of unreliable information.

Conclusions relation to

RLS.

My conclusion tells me that I should have been more

reasonable when I came across the news of a bomb

blast in Pakistan, I should have acted reasonably,

instead of emotionally.

Bibliography. http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/stop-exploiting-emotions1.html

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131503001350

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131509000037

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0007-

1013.2004.00414.x/abstract;jsessionid=4F6A544DCFA7D8CE46115FB95FA1B551.f04t03?deniedAcc

essCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/jturow/Report99.pdf

nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/

Thank you.