Info-Sharing in the Global Village
Residents of the Global Village loath misinformation. It often supplants Knowledge Based Decisions with alternate facts and Conspiracy theories. The most memorable had Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and billionaire philanthropist, linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. Rumor spreaders claimed his vaccine endeared people to Microsoft products. This vaccine, they claimed, created immunity to the virus but made the recipient favor Microsoft products over those of competitors. The theory proliferated among groups on social media. People opposed to vaccines, globalization or complex technology bought into it without reservation. It went viral.
Like all conspiracy claims, this one had an element of truth to it. Gates did provide financial support to organizations developing treatments, vaccines and immunization. That is what a socially conscious philanthropist does. But refuting the misinformation hindered the organizations fighting the virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) called the situation an infodemic: “An over-abundance of information — some accurate and some not — rendering it difficult to find trustworthy sources of information and reliable guidance.”
The Gates conspiracy theories were not the only bits of misinformation spreading online. Every major news event included elements of truth mated with rumors and political propaganda. This appealed to a wider audience. So, COVID-19 was the perfect conduit for misinformation. It had global appeal and a captive audience of people searching online for answers.
In the Industrial Park there were boundaries that helped preclude misinformation. Professional Journalists knew how to discern the truth. They checked the facts before the story was published. TV News anchors like Walter Cronkite and Newspaper reporters like Bob Woodward could be trusted. There was no repercussion from profit-hungry corporations or powerful politicians. This all went away when we left the Industrial Park. The road to the Global Village passed through a gauntlet of self-proclaimed press agents, alternate facts, biased reporting, and trolling by agents of malevolent nations.
Residents determined to limit the spread of misinformation in the Global Village. They would counter it with info-sharing on a scale not possible in the isolation of the Industrial Park. Residents pledged to share knowledge without tying it to profit. They formed online communities to support neighbors in need. They contributed researcher to aid relief projects. They encouraged corporations to make patented innovations available to combat disease and poverty. These actions demonstrate the long-term benefits from the free exchange of information. They also helped remediate the need for factual information.
However, real time global information sharing left little time for vetting and fact checking. By the time a Resident reported false or malicious information, it had spread around the world. This made moderation almost impossible. So a convocation of Knowledge Engineers and Application Developers worked to solve this problem.
It took a year to find a sustainable solution and another year to implement it. Here is how it worked:
Every Resident of the Global Village must be vetted in order to access the Global Information Network. Think of it as a Virtual Private Network serving only Residents of the Village. However, no user-IDs, passcodes, or layered security schemes are required. Just touch the user interface screen with your right index finger and you are ready to go.
No. It is not checking your fingerprint. It is reading your DNA. That is merely the gatekeeper to the Global Information Cloud. The GIC uses satellite telecommunications like GPS. But it is a magnitude faster and more powerful. With access to the Cloud comes a set of touch screen icons that take the user to a dedicated storage container on the cloud. Security, at this point, is left to user preference.
Every Resident has free access to their personal/professional container. Any attempt to hack a container triggers an immediate alert to its owner. It also locks out the hacker from access to the GIC. To be reinstated, the hacker must appear before a tribunal and explain how and why the intrusion occurred. The Tribunal decides if the attempted hack was malicious or foolish. If malicious, the hacker is banned from using the GIC for life. If foolish, the hacker is put on probation and must perform 6-months to a year of service work for the Global Village. During probation, the hacker may have access to the GIC under the supervision of a Cyber Ranger.
