If ever we needed a gentle reminder about the dangers of the way in which young people go about using the Internet, then a recent report is a timely reminder. Research by Ofcom found that a third of teenagers believe that Google ranks its results in terms of a measure of truthfulness.Ofcom Report: UK Children's Literacy 2009 Interim Report - Executive Summary
Ofcom Full Report: UK Children's Literacy 2009 Interim Report PDF
Daily Telegraph Article: Google 'ranks websites by how true they are', say UK children
For a discussion of the wider debate of these issues, see my ISC Bulletin Article - Educating Digital Natives
It'd be interesting to know how the average adult thinks Google does it's ranking.
ReplyDelete-> Most respected publication?
-> Most views?
-> Relevance?
The secrecy of Google's algorithms mean we're all equally in the dark.
Whilst it's likely closer to "most links from external sites", that's not a hundred miles from "truthfulness", is it?
The Troubles.