Note 1

We are operating on the assumption that, in general, more information is better than less in a participatory democracy. This is not always true, however. One has to decide whether the benefits of extra information outweigh the costs.

Assuming we actually want people to be educated about the issues and decide how they want their government to act (see Note 2 for more on that topic), they need to get that information from somewhere. If there is already a reliable source of accurate and complete information that is not being filtered or controlled by those who have an interest in misinformation, there is no need for the internet.

But it is a widespread assumption that our normal media outlets are biased at the least. They also have limited information, since they only have so many reporters with so many connections. As explained in the main text of our argument, the internet provides more information, and of a different type.

There are, however, a number of problems with this new flood of information. First, people don't know who to trust. At least the New York Times is being read by a large number of highly educated people who will catch its mistakes. Individual websites may intentionally deceive people, and it is less likely that misinformation will be caught.

Second, the mass of information, even if true, may just confuse or overwhelm people. Individual citizens might throw in the towel and not vote at all if they feel that they can't ever be fully educated on an issue because there are simply too many sources of information. The marketplace of ideas doesn't work if nobody shows up to shop.

Third, frivolous websites might make people miss the truly important ones. So, even if there is more and better information out there, it is not being found or used. For example, if you have to scroll through hundreds of websites to find the one that could have really educated you on an issue, you're likely never to get there.

Fourth, as we mention elsewhere, people will read only that information that supports their pre-conceived beliefs. RSS feeds make this particularly easy. It doesn't matter if there is challenging arguments from the other side available if you won't accidentally stumble on them and read them. You are (perhaps) more likely to run across opposing viewpoints in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio than you are on the internet.

Fifth, people may read a few crackpot websites online and consider themselves educated, when that's not true. Their time would have been better spent reading the New York Times. The internet enables this kind of half-education as compared to the traditional media outlets.

Of course, the information is there, and that's not going to change. Unless we are prepared to place severe controls on freedom of speech online, it's pointless to ask whether more information is good. The more fruitful line of inquiry is how we can mitigate the problems caused by massive amounts of information online without losing any of the benefits. For example, we need better search engines. We need to encourage people to study both sides of an issue. We need systems that help separate the chaff from the wheat online.

While we acknowledge potential problems with the availability of information, we believe the benefits outweigh the costs, and we have hope that the technologies needed to make the information more useful are coming. We encourage people to keep the problems of information in mind, but we proceed with the assumption that more information is better.