Robot Oscar Wilde and Fake Websites

Do a quick Google search for Oscar Wilde. There’s no surprise that the first result you’ll see is a Wikipedia article, a credible source (although I may argue against that later). Let’s say we’re a bit tired of Wikipedia and would like to try something else. As of today, it takes a keen eye to notice something strange about the eighth result on the very first page of this search.

When you click the link, it brings you to a well written article about Oscar Wilde. The site, Uncyclopedia, looks legitimate and its layout could easily be mistaken for Wikipedia. If you were only researching Mr. Wilde for the very first time, the following Uncyclopedia quote may appear completely normal to you…. “Playwright, novelist, musician, poet, philanthropist, historian and short story writer: these are just some of the professions of individuals that Oscar Wilde has corrupted with his rampant sexuality and Rabelaisian appeti”. The article itself seems completely believable. Again, it takes a vigilant mind to catch some of the humor. For example, the caption under his picture states “Oscar Wilde pictured in the 1898 advertising campaign for the world's first invisible mobile phone - the Teleny.” Faster than you could say “FAKE WEBSITE”, a student has now collected enough information to write their research project. Uncyclopedia, an open-for-editing website, is not alone in this misinformation quest. Encyclopedia Dramatica, which serves the same role as a fake site, has been pranking information seekers for years.

For more impressionable students, www.theflatearthsociety.org is one of many scientifically inaccurate websites that are written with such seriousness and unbreaking character that most visitors would believe that the authors are being completely rational. Of course, there is not much harm that could come from being convinced that the world is flat, but what about hate sites? Barry Panas, a Physics teacher at St. Johns-Ravenscourt, retold a story about how over the span of a summer, one of his younger students was completely engrossed in a neo-nazi website. So much so that he took up the racist and prejudice beliefs of the Nazi’s and soon had to attend therapy. Upon investigating the website, Mr. Panas commented that it was clear that the website was a hoax, filled with members and commenters trying to get a quick laugh while taking advantage of gullible kids. One final example is one that any person without a science background would fall for. One of the most famous joke websites is one dedicated to Dihydrogen Monoxide (in plain English: WATER). The website tells readers that “Dihydrogen Monoxyde is colorless, odourless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO…” The website later goes on to call readers to action by sending out emails or calling their local politician to get them to ban the use of Dihydrogen Monoxide, which they tell gullible readers is available in most stores and unregulated in any household.

So, for a Middle School student with no background in literature, how are they to know immediately that Oscar Wilde never actually hosted a BBC television show regarding sexuality? Simply put, it is up to teachers in all subject areas to teach students on how to properly search for information and learn how to be eternal research skeptics. Students should learn that even the most popular and informative websites like Wikipedia could just as easily be wrong. A teacher could show this to their class by simply going into wikipedia and freely editing any article. Just because he says elephants are green, and just because it now appears on the internet, it does not mean that it is true. While websites like Uncyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Dramatica can be comical at times, school divisions with internet filters should without a doubt block these websites so they cannot be read by students. This is a quick solution, but one that I do not highly recommend since it does not solve the same problems at home while ignoring the importance of building a student’s “internal research firewall”, that is, their own ability to seek out misinformation.

I believe that students are never too young to use article and abstract search engines, such as Google Scholar. If it happens that these articles are too advanced for the subject matter, I would impose a “references only” rule for Wikipedia. That is, students may use Wikipedia, but only to find references which they will research further. Even a Wikipedia article like the biography of Socrates contains 23 external references (all noted and linked within the article), as well as over a dozen literary references and further reading resources.

The goal of these joke websites is to entertain, be it the readers or the creators. However, in doing so, they also misinform. Only when a student has shown that they have an impenetrable internal research firewall, perhaps through tests given by the teacher, would I feel confident having them learn from open websites like Wikipedia.

Resources:

Abbasi, A., Chen, H., (2009). A Comparison of Tools for Detecting Fake Websites. IEEE Computer Society, 42(10), 78-86.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info." Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.

The Flat Earth Society." The Flat Earth Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.

Henry L. A. (2007, November 10). War of the Words Over Ulster ‘Uncyclopedia’. Belfast Telegraph

Orlowski A. (2005, December 12). There’s No Wikipedia Entry For ‘Moral Responsibility’. The Register

Oscar Wilde. Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia."Uncyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2011

Woulfe, C. (2006, May 28). Schools Face New Cyber Bulling Menace. New Zealand Herald