Once upon a time most information was passed on in a form which began "once upon a time". But that was before the Internet, or television, or radio, or printing - or even writing. Back in the good old days when information passed directly from person to person the reputation and manner of the teller gave the hearer lots of clues about the truth of what was being said.
Even for much of the intervening period, during the evolution of communications media, it has required specialist skills or expensive equipment to disseminate a message widely. And the need for investment in skills or equipment limited the numbers involved and gave some assurance that those publishing the information had an interest in being taken seriously.
Now that equation has been overturned. With a PC, modem and Internet account anyone can put together an online magazine, an email newsletter, or an Internet-only radio station beaming Real Audio streams around the world.
Information, which trickled from person to person in the days of "once upon a time", now lands in a torrent all round us. As well as the difficulty of sifting and interpreting this tide of ideas we have the added difficulty of assessing its truth - without the shifty gaze, faltering voice or bad reputation of the teller to guide us. "The trouble is figuring out who is actually telling the truth," writes Keith Ferrell in the CNet online magazine (www.cnet.com). "Many argue that making this distinction is harder on the Net, that fact and fiction blend, hoax and hyperbole mushroom, and propaganda masquerades as prophecy. This is true."
To many people, putting something on a computer screen gives it an air of truth. Paul Gilster, author of Digital Literacy, wrote: "There's a lingering public perception . . . of the computer's ferocious accuracy: computers don't make mistakes. Couple that with the general public's sense of the Internet as having been developed by the academic-scientific community, under government auspices, as a high-level information source, and you do indeed have some people accepting far too quickly any information that appears on a computer screen simply because it does appear on a screen."
US courts will soon be considering just how credible (and how damaging if untrue) an Internet publication is. In August a US presidential adviser filed a $30million lawsuit against Internet columnist Matt Drudge and America Online. The adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, wants $10 million compensation and $20 million punitive damages because, according to the suit, the Drudge Report stated that Blumenthal had a history of "spousal abuse". Drudge has retracted the column of August 10th. This is not the first Internet libel case, but it is one of the largest and most high-profile.
Less damagingly, a speech supposedly delivered by the novelist Kurt Vonnegut at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier in the summer quickly distributed itself across the Net. The quirky "speech", which began by advising new graduates to wear sunscreen, amused its readers, who passed it on to friends and colleagues. They in turn passed it on, creating a worldwide fan club for the witty speech.
The problem was that it wasn't by Vonnegut. It was a column by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune. Someone who has not been identified took her article, edited it and attributed it to Vonnegut. The hoax was quickly discovered, but among those taken in by it was the novelist's wife who had accepted that it was his work.
Not long after the crash of TWA flight 800 off Long Island the theory that it had been shot down accidentally by the US navy surged around the Net. Detailed postings, naming the ships supposedly involved, and the missiles they carry backed up the theory. The conspiracy-theory view of the disaster blossomed - lent credence by the public support of Pierre Salinger, a US journalist and adviser to the Kennedy White House - before collapsing for want of any evidence stronger than the "what if" variety.
The death of the Princess of Wales brought forth a similar wave of theorising. Again it rested more on multiple "what ifs" than on verified facts.
Ultimately, the question is not "can you trust the Internet?", but "can you trust site A, B or C?" A newspaper's online edition will generally uphold the same standards as its print edition, while Micky Joe's homepage will most likely reflect the character of Micky Joe. Unless the reader numbers Mr Joe among his acquaintances, trust in the homepage's contents should be tempered by the fact that this is being related by a stranger.
In between, a new wave of other serious publications such as CNet are emerging and establishing their own credibility base.
A lot of misinformation may be part of the price we pay for the communications revolution of the Internet. Once we get used to that idea, and to assessing critically what it brings us, we may all coexist happily ever after.
Fiachra O Marcaigh is at: fomarcaigh@irish-times.ie