Peter Damian has argued for the need to levy ‘falsity taxation’, from which processes of ‘truth verification’ would be funded. http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/07/truth-in-numbers.html



In response to this I proposed an alternative example of taxation on falsity, and also propounded a process of ‘assurance of veracity’ as an alternative to the University model of expert verification.




Some expansion:

One method of ‘assurance’ is the setting of ‘bench marks’ and the publishing by the assuring entity/agency of lists of those who meet, via testing, the standards of product or service or delivery of skill described by the appropriate bench mark. During the Medieval period assurance of quality in goods and services was driven by Craft Guilds, which responded where relevant to the setting by Civil authority of standardised weights and measures and other quality standards. Qualification, either by award from a centre of Education (Physicians and Priests !) or by completion of apprenticeship and eventual membership of a Craft Guild, provided assurance of skill and professional perspective – essentially bench marking of practitioners. Additionally, practitioners had to work with the systematic application, supported by statute, of a system of weights and measures, providing a further level of ‘assurance’. This system is what currently, in broad terms, governs all traded ‘traditional’ goods and services, in all developed countries, although a variety of ‘faith based’ services are often excluded from these systems and a double ‘unprotection’ frequently applies where charity status is accorded to the provider.

Wikipedia, in common with many Web 2.0 operations, specifically rejects the value of ‘bench marking of practitioners’, embracing what Andrew Keen calls “The Cult of the Amateur”. I think Keen is wrong to use “amateur” as a perjorative, because the issue is not whether an individual has achieved formal benchmarking, but whether they are engaged in activities commensurate with their skills, and are approaching those activities with the diligence common to those who have achieved formal benchmarking in a manner that is testable. There are many areas of study – Astronomy and Archaeology are notable – where amateurs continue to contribute significantly to academic endeavour; however the work of amateur practitioners in these fields is benchmarked through academic oversight and/or peer review. I think it would be more accurate to describe the problem that Keen identifies as ‘the demand for unassurance’ – a moral imperative that no ‘actor’ in the Web 2.0 dramaticon may be subject to question about their competence, something which Wikipedia codifies in AGF and other ‘rules’.

Where the service/product provider definitively rejects benchmarking of its practitioners, it is doubly important that quality assurance of the service/product is provided by expert judgement from an external source (taxed falsity), or otherwise is subject to comparison with providers who are benchmarked. In the case of online information sources it is reasonable to suggest that the entities which provide local or National ‘assurance of quality’ for goods and services, should develop comparable ‘assurance’ processes for new media. This need not be onerous, School or Examination boards could begin by publishing reviews of online resources with listings reviewing content accuracy, relevance to age/qualification level, safety of use etc.

Moving the focus from provider to consumer (or agency of consumer protection) does have the effect of reducing the impact of a moral imperative for the provider of Internet services to be truthful/accurate but in the case of Wikipedia, there is an avowed intent by the provider to avoid responsibility, in that case it is reasonable that real world Society collectively acts to provide some form of backstop from which the non expert citizen can make a judgement on what it is that is being ‘sold’ to them. Accepting this position provides direction for those who have sought to campaign about the unhealthy influence of Wikipedia and its dangers to young people in that it suggest ‘positive’ action that can be taken at a (real) social organisation level – local, State or National government level, so that rather than asking politicians and bureaucrats to accept Wikipedia as ‘evil’ (even if it is), the request can be presented as a need to provide information and guidance to consumers, rather than an overt need to ban accessibility.

A.virosa

Thanks for rescuing the sensible part of Peter's Principle, er, Thesis.

The thing is, there already is a Falsity Tax — the Exciseman is called “Evolution” and it excises species by way of Extinction. If the Web ever begins to get Weber, web-φooted φolk will begin to realize that Social Accounting Systems, like those we embody in our Governments, Institutions, and Cultures, have the job of anticipating and amortizing the tax bill before it comes due. To the extent that they manage to succeed at all, they accomplish this task by crafting an Image of Reality and guiding the conduct of Society in accord with the Exchequer that cannot be denied.

Jon Awbrey

Levy them with some leavening

The best way to deal with the purveyors of falsity is to "take them to tax" with merciless satire and parody.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program of Talking To Morons …

Jon

Point taken, Avirosa. But this reminds me of the time, when I was younger and more naive, when I hired a plumber to repair my central heating system on the strength of a trade association mentioned in his advertisement. The association said it was there for my protection. The guy took me to the cleaners and we ended up going to court. When I appealed to the association it turned out to be an association of crooked and corrupt plumbers, set up simply to con the gullible.

This is why regulation by the state seems to be inevitable.

Wait a minute, are you suggesting for a minute that the state regulate truth?

Pardon me if I find this questionable.

Minitrue doubleplusungood!

A truly horrible idea, forthwith we should abandon all State regulated truth and from now on should independently give our own definitions of measurements - no more metres or yards or their subdivisions which are creations of Statist hegemonic intent and imposed upon us by the oppression of Law. I lay claim to the 'sporite', a linear distance equal to the diametres of one million fungal spores of the genus Amanita.

A.virosa

I like to measure time in billions of nanoseconds, or bananoseconds, for short.

Except for the variance in the size of Amanita spores and the large number involved, I don't see why the sporite couldn't take off. Whether it lands and sprouts is another thing. I do not object to simple common definitions being maintained by government agencies. The benefit in standardization vastly outweighs the potential for abuse in the case of units.

If we approach anything remotely political, however, how long would it be until some wheel got greased to squeak something untrue? I provided evidence that government officials have, in practice, interfered with Wikipedia to support their case, that politics and information have already been intertwined in the wrong way. If they had a more official resource with which to tamper, more damage might be done.

In case you didn't catch the reference, I said before "Minitrue doubleplusungood!" This means "The Ministry of Truth is very, very bad!" That is a reference to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, where a Ministry of Truth regulates the propaganda fed to the public. Surely anyone who has read that book should realize that the state must never be allowed to control what is understood as truth … we need a separation of powers, so to speak.


I will be sure to pass that one on!

My own preference would be if there was a recall option for published material that is harmful and/or misinforms. Of course actually trying to do that would almost certainly create more problems than it solves. But it would be nice if it were possible. Perhaps also with a remorseful public apology, as seems to expected of business leaders in Japan who have created a public embarrassment.

Those points have more to do with the nature and structure of Government than the role of civil authority in maintaining standards of metric as a basis for assuring accuracy in the transactions and education pursued by citizens. Politicised administration does indeed bring problems of neutrality in its train; in the UK there is an ideal (not always met) of the administrators (the civil service) being strictly non partisan – in effect providing separation of powers. But ‘1984’ is a non squitur in this discussion - of course totalitarian Government has bad outcomes and it is surely unarguable that ‘truthfulness’ in Government requires a system of open democracy and an active and critical citizenry. Orwell wasn’t presenting a case for the evils of Government or making an argument for Anarchism, although exactly what he was getting it is debatable, but Government = bad wasn’t it.

Neither I nor Peter have argued for ‘Ministry of Truths’ – Peter’s starting point was of a need to ‘tax falsity’, while I sought to refigure the debate in terms of matching the taxation (punishment of fraud) with the need for a system of assurance. Peter gave a practical example of where non legislative ‘assurance’ was actually a further opportunity for fraud, his very reasonable conclusion was that without the State acting (Government providing collective power to the citizen via administrative and legal process, facilitated where needed via the Courts) to provide or support ‘assurance of accuracy of metrics of service quality and skill of providers, there could be no sustainable ‘assurance’. For anyone wanting to argue against this role of the State, and who is actually concerned about how ‘falsity’ is to be challenged, the burden is to provide alternative proposals.

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, I see no fundamental problem in Government PR departments seeking to enact their normal propagandising roles by acting as WP editors, so long as the States which those Government departments serve, provide their citizens with clear data from processes of independent expert assessment of comparison of sources for education, information and learning, which clearly identifies Wikipedia as being both untrustworthy, and of being of likely harm to minors.

A.virosa

I'd thought this example from Peter was not in need of further elucidation - but perhaps there's a problem of Transatlantic 'translation', so to somewhat belabour the point:

There are two seperate metrics involved here, there is the accuracy/validity of the advertisment and there is the validity of the service provided. In the UK there are a number legal provisions that are intended to ensure that an 'advertisement' (widely construed) is truthful, and that breaches are punishable by criminal sanction and potentially subject to subsequent civil redress. A system of local and national adminstration (Trading Standards and OFT )supports adherence to the legislation, with a Trade based entity (ASA) providing a level of inhibition on falsity. Seperately there are very strict regulations over the installtion and servicing of gas appliances and this is supported by an industry level registration of accredited engineers, with the industry oversighted by national administration (HSE). Building regulations also apply to electrical and water installations.

These systems do not prevent determined fraud, but a substantive level of safety is assurred for the consumer and redress is achieveable where the systems of assurrance have failed. Although the immediacy of cost (£000s for the consumer) and public danger (lethal) from unregulated gas installation set this particular example apart from any concern about Internet delivered information sources, the principles of 'assurrance' can be equally applied to both cases. First there is a need for a statement of assessable standards, second there is advice to the consumer as to what those standards are, third there is identification of entities that meet or fail assessment. Beyond that, within National boundaries Laws may give greater force to compliance with standards but at present that seems not relevant to the Internet and in relation to publication may raise questions about limitation on free speech, but of itself does not provide a basis for Governments to not seek to support the develoment of prcesses of consumer assuarrance for Internet delivered information sources.

A.virosa