School of Information Resources and Library Science

Information Ethics Roundtable

April 3-4, 2009

University of Arizona, Tucson

This Year's Topic: Misinformation and Disinformation

With the coming of the Internet and other new information technologies, a major problem has been "information overload." In the mass of information available, how can I find the specific information that I am looking for? But in the last few years, a new problem has taken center stage: Namely, once I find the information, how can I tell whether it is any good?

Anyone can post almost anything on the Internet. There is no guarantee that the authors of websites have the necessary expertise on the topics that they discuss. As a result, some people may accidentally be disseminating misinformation. There is also no guarantee that the authors of websites are even sincere. In other words, some people may be intentionally disseminating disinformation.

And these are not just idle worries. For example, while more and more people are seeking health information on the Internet, a significant amount of this information has been found to be inaccurate. Also, while more and more people are using Wikipedia ("the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit") as a principal source of information, many individuals have been caught manipulating entries in this encyclopedia in self-serving ways. Furthermore, such inaccurate and misleading information can clearly lead to serious harm (physical, financial, environmental, etc.).

Of course, concerns about information quality are not unique to Internet. Such worries arise with almost any information source. We are confronted with spin, half-truths, propaganda, and honest mistakes on a daily basis from many sources.

As information and information technologies have become more and more essential to our social, economic, and political interactions, serious reflection on information quality is now critical. In particular, several important conceptual, technical, empirical, and ethical issues must be addressed:

• What exactly is misinformation and disinformation?
• How can we detect misinformation and disinformation so that we can avoid being misled by it?
• What are the ethics of creating and disseminating misinformation and disinformation? (Inaccurate information can result from negligence. It can also result from malicious motives. But sometimes it may be morally justified.)
• What are the ethics of controlling the dissemination of misinformation and disinformation? (For instance, while eliminating misinformation and disinformation would typically seem to be a good idea, many strategies for doing so raise serious worries about free speech and intellectual freedom.)

In the spring of 2009, the School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS) at the University of Arizona and the Research Group on the History and Philosophy of Information Access will host an interdisciplinary conference that addresses some of these important questions. This year's roundtable has received funding from SIRLS and the Arizona Chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

More details will be posted shortly. For further information, contact the program chair:

Don Fallis
School of Information Resources and Library Science
University of Arizona
1515 East First Street
Tucson, AZ 85719
fallis (at) email (dot) arizona (dot) edu

• Tentative Schedule

• Thomas Carson (Loyola University Chicago, Philosophy), author of "The Definition of Lying" (Nous, 2006), will discuss distortions of the historical record.
• Don Fallis (University of Arizona, SIRLS), author of "What is Lying?" (Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming), will discuss what Disinformation is.
• Amy Fatzinger (University of Arizona, American Indian Studies), author of "'Indians in the House': Revisiting the Indians in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Books", will discuss misrepresentations of Native Americans in literature.
• Martin Frické (University of Arizona, SIRLS), co-author of "Indicators of Accuracy of Consumer Health Information on the Internet" (Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2002), will discuss how to identify inaccurate information.
• James Mahon (Washington and Lee University, Philosophy), author of "The Definition of Lying and Deception" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008).
• Soo Young Rieh (University of Michigan, School of Information), co-author of "Credibility: A Multidisciplinary Framework" (Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 2007).
• Larry Sanger (Citizendium.org), co-founder of Wikipedia.
• Roy Sorensen (Dartmouth College, Philosophy), author of "Bald-Faced Lies! Lying Without the Intent to Deceive" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2007).
• Heshan Sun (University of Arizona, SIRLS), co-author of "Online Seller's Trust and Use of Online Auction Maretplaces", will discuss how information quality influences trust in online services.

• Panel Discussion on Lying with Carson, Fallis, Mahon, and Sorensen.
• Graduate Poster Session on Information Quality.

We live in an "information society." Information and new information technologies have become essential to our social, economic, and political interactions. The roundtable brings together researchers from several different disciplines (philosophy, information science, communications, public administration, anthropology, law, etc.) to discuss the ethical issues surrounding access to information, information privacy, intellectual property, intellectual freedom, and censorship. The first Information Ethics Roundtable in 2003 grew out of a debate in Library Quarterly between Doyle and Frické-Mathiesen-Fallis on the issue of "Censorship and Access to Information." Every year since then, the roundtable has focused on another important area of information ethics.

• Information Ethics Roundtable 2010 on "Consumer Health Information"

• Information Ethics Roundtable 2008 on "Information Ethics and its Applications"
• Information Ethics Roundtable 2007 on "Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Property"
• Information Ethics Roundtable 2006 on "Secrecy"
• Information Ethics Roundtable 2005 on "Intellectual Property"
• Information Ethics Roundtable 2004 on "Privacy"
• Information Ethics Roundtable 2003