Common Mistakes People Make when Researching Online
In this post, I will talk about common mistakes people make when using the Internet for research. The “research” could be anything from what phone to buy to fact-checking information you heard on the news.
I know this post is kinda long, but its hard to write short posts while giving detailed information.
Please note everything I say are my own opinions or things I have observed.
Only using social media as a source of information.
Social media (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, Disqus) are very popular places to get information from others. You will find the users on social media have wildly varying opinions. Unfortunately, most of these answers (or videos in the case of YouTube) are given with little to no facts to back them up (a few do though).
In addition, social media tends to attract trolls who try to sow discord. Usually they gather like-minded minions who all-at-once gang up on someone they decide not to like that day. This wastes a researcher’s time, since he must filter out irrelevant posts.
Summary: Occasionally you will find a good user on social media with quality information that is not just an opinion, but from my experience most social media answers are quickly written and are of poor quality.
“Everyone says the same thing, so it must be true!”
This one is a very common mistake. I even fell into this “everyone else says it” trap when I was younger. This is a fallacy called “appeal to the popular”.
“Appealing to the popular” is when you decide something is true or false because everyone else thinks that way too. That is not doing real research. That is just being lazy and letting others do your thinking for you.
A lot of times the majority is not correct. How do you know that a few people didn’t give misinformation online a while back, and everyone else jumped on the “band wagon”, automatically believing what they were told and repeating the same to others?
This applies to people who look at the number of “up-votes” or “down-votes” to determine if an online comment is accurate. Comment voting systems seem like a good idea on paper, but in practice they cause people to believe (or disbelieve) information based upon other people’s opinions. A comment with a ton of up-votes does not make it correct, nor does a comment with tons of down-votes make it incorrect.
Summary: Facts are not made by consensus. Just because everyone agrees, does not mean it’s true. You must always use common sense and verify information you receive.
Blindly trusting information obtained on Wikipedia without verifying.
I’ve observed many people quoting Wikipedia like it’s the Bible and can give no wrong answers. I must disagree.
I have read things (e.g., health & politics) on Wikipedia that were at the very least biased and at worst propaganda. This is due to literally anyone being able to edit most articles on Wikipedia.
I had one Wikipedia article that made a bold claim, but when I clicked the link going to the supposed source of this information, the link didn’t even exist. Someone just made up stuff and gave a phony link to make it look good to people who didn’t bother to verify.
Another Wikipedia article I read made a health claim (I do not wish to get into specifics). However, when I did research on Google, I came across a reliable health website that not only contradicted Wikipedia, but showed that the wiki’s author was intentionally misleading people. Why do that with health-based information?
Even if the wiki’s author is telling the truth, a self-appointed “fact-checker” on Wikipedia may erase their edit due to a severe bias.
Summary: I find Wikipedia useful when it comes to topics such as PC/Console/Server technology or basic information about someone popular (e.g., their age & net worth). Anything else (e.g., politics, science, history, the Bible, etc.) tends to attract people with a major bias to intentionally give disinformation to others.
“Professionals (e.g., doctors, politicians, scientists) can be trusted to give accurate information on the Internet.”
Unfortunately, people who should “know the facts” don’t always know the facts. Sometimes they guess while claiming they “know for sure”, they may assume the information is correct (without verifying), or they make up information to support their agenda.
This means if you automatically believe information without verifying “because my doctor said so” or “my nice newscaster in a suit & tie said so”, you may find that the information was not as accurate as you thought and this may lead to trouble for you.
Summary: Always verify information you receive, even if it comes from a “trusted” source. That source may be giving accurate data, but you should still do your due diligence and verify.
Using “anecdotal evidence” as proof.
This is a logical fallacy known as “appeal to anecdote”. What exactly is “anecdotal evidence”? It is someone’s personal testimony of a particular event. It contains no scientific data, just someone’s word on a matter.
The Internet is full of people who give anecdotal testimonies as “proof” of their claims. Unless you were there with the person at the time of the event, or they present detailed evidence, there is no way to determine if they are accurately recalling the facts. This is assuming the person is telling the truth to begin with.
Here is an example. Let us say you go to a website to view information about the common cold. While on there, you decide to read the comment section.
A guy named Phil has posted a comment saying that he is “very healthy” and “has never caught a cold before”. Now personally I would say Phil is lying. Sure, there is a (very) small chance of his statement being true, but I would not bet on it.
After reading, you take Phil’s comment and start going around telling others that “there are people who can never get the common cold”. You would be committing the “appeal to anecdote” fallacy. You are saying something is true, because someone else claimed that is what happened to them.
Phil’s comment was not “proof” of anything. He presented no evidence of his claim. He could have had a cold (multiple times) and thought it was just “allergies”. If that is the case, he is relaying incorrect information based upon a bad assumption…and now you are relaying his bad information, based upon his bad assumption too. What a situation to be in!
That is why I always insist people verify information they receive online (when possible) and use common sense.
Posted in General, Internet and Servers
Several ‘no log’ VPN Providers Caught Keeping Logs
I have written before about being cautious concerning any VPN providers who claim they are not keeping logs.
Just this morning, I was sent an email concerning several VPN providers who had their data dumped onto the Internet, proving they had been keeping logs while claiming they do not keep logs.
- https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/17/ufo_vpn_database/
- https://betanews.com/2020/07/15/ufo-vpn-data-leak/
- https://www.techradar.com/news/these-no-log-vpns-actually-collect-plenty-of-logs-and-the-data-has-been-exposed
This is more proof that you should never trust a “no logging” VPN service to not keep logs.
Now am I saying that using a paid VPN is useless? No, but you need to be careful which VPN service you are using. In my experience, very few are legitimate, and even the legitimate ones are probably logging enough data to eventually identify you.
VPN services are in it for the money and most will say anything (e.g., “no logs”) to make a quick buck. Not to mention they could be selling your user data on the side – a double-whammy.
Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Security, Software, VPN
What is an Online Comment War?
First off, what exactly is an online “comment war”?
An online “comment war” is when a bunch of people are commenting to each other – usually several times a day – in an effort to “win” an argument. This usually is done by using bad arguments, insults, and faulty logic. “Comment wars” are pretty much useless and go nowhere fast.
I will give my latest experience of a “comment war” I ran across a couple of days ago. Please keep in mind that I was not involved in the “war”. I was just a watcher.
I have changed the names of the main people involved for privacy reasons. I am also just giving a brief explanation of what happened. Too much detail will remove anonymity as well as take too long to write (this post will already be long enough 🙂).
I also will try to keep the paraphrase in context. Sometimes paraphrasing causes the context to get warped.
The last two days I have been watching – off and on – an online “comment war” on a semi-popular news website.
To start, an online user named Betty posted a comment about a controversial video circulating around the web. In her comment, she attacked a whole group of people, which included an accusation that could not be proven just by watching the video. Basically she made a – more or less – useless comment.
Now another user named Greg responded to her and asked her if she was being genuine and why she was being prejudice. Two days later, she never responded to him. This is a sign that Greg was right in his assessment and Betty did not know what to say in reply.
Betty then proceeded to comment to another user making an even more ridiculous claim.
Someone else – named Reed – responded to Betty. He strongly disagreed with her short but inaccurate comment. While he did not do the best job in replying, he did ask her some questions that challenged her claims.
Here is where the “war” begins. Both Betty and Reed start commenting to each other. Now to be fair, Betty did say 2 or 3 things that were logical and most people would agree with. However the rest of her commenting was illogical, insulting, “smart-aleck”, and dishonest.
Basically Reed kept re-asking his (valid) questions to Betty while she continued to ignore them for basically no reason that I could tell.
Around 1 1/2 days later, Betty starts to agree with Reed and act like what he is saying is “exactly” what she was saying.
I suspect that Betty knew she lost the argument (Reed did make valid points), and did not want to admit she was wrong. So instead she decides to try and make it look like she and Reed are saying the same thing.
Another person – we will call her Lucy – responds to Betty and makes a very valid point. Betty, now being calmer and less emotional, responds to Lucy.
Betty’s response to Lucy sounded good, but there is a major problem with what she said. Betty is now claiming to have been arguing for something completely different than what she stated to begin with. In other words, Betty was contradicting herself.
There are two explanations that make sense in this situation. Either Betty did a real bad job in explaining what she originally meant, or Betty was losing the argument and started to lie to hide that fact.
My personal opinion is that she was lying. This is because:
- Betty ignored Greg’s comment asking about her genuineness and her prejudice. Several people up-voted Greg’s comment, since he made good points.
- Betty totally ignored Reed’s repeated questioning about the illogical stuff she previously said.
- After multiple people called on her illogical posting, she suddenly has a totally different argument than what she originally posted.
As you can see, an online “comment war” does not really accomplish anything.
When Betty encountered arguments that made sense and even refuted some of what she said, she quickly “moved the goal posts” – changed her context / main point – to make it look like she did not lose the argument.
These “wars” would not happen if people would just be respectful and admit when they made incorrect assumptions, wrote in a disrespectful tone, etc.
Instead people’s pride gets hurt and they want to “fight it out” instead of being logical and acting like a mature adult. Worse these people end up being dishonest and changing their arguments to prevent embarrassment from losing an argument.
Posted in General, Internet and Servers, Society