ABSTRACT
THISESSAY REVIEWS THE ISSUES SURROUNDING determinations of the credibility
of online materials. The author argues, first, that the World Wide
Web, and the larger Internet, comprise some very difficult and distinctive
features that make conventional ways of assessing credibility adequate only
within a fairly bounded frame; second, that beyond this bounded frame,
standard credibility measures encounter some paradoxical and self-undermining
consequences; third, that this picture is complicated further
by the fact that “credibility” actually covers several very different sorts of
factors, not all of them matters of judging truth and falsity per se; and
therefore, fourth, that the assessment of credibility needs to address the
social and normative factors that actually shape the character and quality
of online information. These considerations combine to reveal an ethical
dimension to many credibility assessments.