What's Credible Anymore?

The Internet serves host to many unique worlds of information. Anyone with a computer can post anything they find fit online, no matter if it is true or false. Just searching a topic online and reading the first thing that pops up is no longer viable. If online readers need to research a topic, especially one that requires standards of academic quality, they need to search multiple websites to compare and contrast what is truth and what is masking itself as truth.

I am a huge believer of Twitter, but when it comes to its credibility, I would imagine the website in the bottom of the ranks--thanks to its millions of users. However, that's not to say you can't find valuable, trustworthy information throughout the Twitter-verse. If users dedicated their time and effort, Twitter can then be one of the faster, if not, fastest ways to find out the latest breaking news going on in the world. I can't count how many times the trending topics on Twitter have been death announcements of celebrities who are in fact still alive as I type this post. However, for every post similar to that, I can name two or three instances where the outcome of the latest news has been verified and credited.

Other websites that rely on celebrity scandal or gossip like TMZ always seem to make me pause. These sites base their mission on being the first to release information about a certain rumor. When Michael Jackson died, there were hundreds of reports claiming to know exactly what happened that morning. Choosing between which website to believe is tough--although some may seem more credible than others, all have their susceptible tendencies. Sensational magazines who are also online (i.e. The National Enquirer) should just be thrown out; I try to stay as far away from those as possible.

To decide what's credible, we truly just have to do the research. Websites choosing to cite their information is obviously a good thing. Watch out for websites that post a lot of content in a little amount of time. Also, a red flag for me is if the article is not edited very well. Posts with a ton of mistakes prove to me that the author does not care about its readers, therefore does not care about the validity of the text.