Warning sounded on web's future (BBC)

Well it would appear that the BBC has finally worked out what the rest of us already know, you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (No I don't know who he is either, but with a "sir" in front of his name I am busy bowing down and tugging my forelock) has come up with the idea of a "trustworthiness" labelling system for websites.

Sir Tim has set up the WWWF, and to be fair trustworthiness is just one of his aims. He wants to make the web more accessible not just to those of us in the West. Sir Tim wants to expand the web beyond just text to reach those through the web who can't read or write. He also wants to increase mobile web browsing and the usage in Africa . Basically he wants to bring the web to the world regardless of wealth, ability, status and location.

A very noble endeavour.

My take on it is that we need to separate opinion from fact and make some attempt at peer review or evidence based labelling. If an article has credible supporting evidence or is more factual than opinionated then it gets a higher rating. Perhaps any news site could have assessors who are trained and vetted for suitability and experience, who can then rate articles.

The web is a very interesting place with every view represented but off the beaten track away from the main brands such as the BBC and CNN how do you know who to trust especially on the basis of one article. Trust can be easily built on a series of articles but on one short article it is more difficult to judge. This is where bloggers have their niche, they can earn trust and reliability from their readership but how many bloggers have internal standards or a code of practice.