Voice of the Masses: What do you think of Mozilla’s “Information Trust Initiative”?
The Mozilla Foundation has its fingers in many pies. Its latest project is the Mozilla Information Trust Initiative, “a comprehensive effort to keep the Internet credible and healthy”. From the site:
“Mozilla is developing products, research, and communities to battle information pollution and so-called ‘fake news’ online. And we’re seeking partners and allies to help us do so.”
For our next podcast recording, we want to hear from you: Do you think this is a good idea? Should Mozilla be getting more involved with the politics of the web? Or should it focus entirely on the Firefox web browser and related technologies? Let us know your musings in the comments below.
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Mike Saunders
Mike stores his data by printing out hex dumps and laminating the sheets. He's the author of The Haynes Linux Manual and the creator of MikeOS, an operating system hand-built from assembly language.
The supposed end product is “technology that combats misinformation” If they’ve got something in mind already they’re not letting on.
Maybe something akin to phishing protection with a warning screen or popup? Best case scenario, they get other browser manufacturers to go along with it which is unlikely given the risk of appearing political or censorious. How many people have the wherewithal to choose Firefox but not to smell bs when it’s shoved in their face?
It’s good that they’re giving it a go but I’m not too optimistic that they’ll end up creating something that catches on.
As for whether they should just focus on Firefox, it seems like their user-base wants them to keep it fast and light rather than adding lots of new features and I’m guessing they have more funding than they need to achieve that.
What on earth do people mean by “fast” in a system heavily moderated by user input and available network bandwidth ?
It’s an interesting and admirable initiative and it’s encouraging to see that education is mentioned. I’m sure the technological solutions are interesting to the boffins at Mozilla, and doubtless they will have some utility, however I think that education must form the foundation of any serious solution to this problem.
People need to be educated enough to be able to decide whether or not they should even trust Mozilla’s recommendations or rankings in the first place. Given this ability to think critically and sceptically about information sources it may render the technological aspects of the initiative somewhat redundant. Alternatively you have people trusting whatever Mozilla tells them simply because “that’s what the browser says”. That isn’t a desirable state of affairs even if Mozilla are benevolent operatives with a perfect solution to sorting out the wheat from the chaff of the information deluge.
I think it’s worth pointing out that misinformation is not a technological problem but a human one. Snake oil and charlatans have been around long before the internet in many guises that have implications not just on politics; but on economics and medicine too. My nurse mother has had patients die from curable cancers because they chose reiki over radiotherapy. I don’t know if a browser enhancement would have prevented that but I guess it’s worth a try? Certainly education would have helped but that is a very difficult thing to achieve. Unfortunately some people just trust star signs more than scientists.
Yeah, that’s the other factor. Even when faced with overwhelming evidence it’s still perfectly possible to close your eyes to it.
How many people who need this would such an initiative actually reach? And how many of those people would trust the MITI over what they want to believe?
Maybe parents/school administrators could use it as a tool to get children to stop and think before they trust ‘some guy on the internet’?
I’m appalled that anyone would even consider the Orwellian, dystopian concept of a browser that censors “unacceptable” views.
A browser that potentially takes the voice away from victims and enforces political (and presumably scientific) conformity
If we want to be manipulated & lied to, we already have a choice to select only main stream media and official announcements.
Moreover, I really cannot grasp mozilla’s announcement that such censorship is somehow the essence of a ‘free’ internet, and that everyone (at least, the peer group of all their personal friends) has a deep need to avoid having their oversensitive emotions “triggered” by conflicting information. Aw, diddums.
I note that, as usual, mozilla announced this as a handed-down-from-on-high initiative, on a blog that gives no opportunity to comment or vote it down. I wonder what unstated affiliations they have nowadays, when one consider that bit default the browser is insecure (webRTC ip leaks, at the minimum). And who is accepting money (and a little temporary safety) from whom.
But what astounds me above that, is that I see no great storm of dissent, no petitions, no campaigns to have mozilla reverse course on this and be made to have a thorough rethink of what freedom really means.
typos*
one considers that by default the browser is insecure..