Unrestricted Web Publishing

Mass media creates a global home for millions of users who contribute to its informative platforms.  These platforms include Time, The New York Times, or The Huffington Post, and countless others.  Unfortunately, all of the contributors do not follow a strict criteria when it pertains to posting informative and credible content from an actual source.  But, there is help.  In the guidelines illustrated in the article, "Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources," the author provides several hints that will aid in distinguishing what is reliable information and what is not.  

To test and evaluate these guidelines for personal understanding, I visited an online news publication, The New York Times, for articles pertaining to the recent abduction and death of a Palestinian teenager.  I found an  article written by Isabel Kershner, a writer who has covered middle-eastern events on previous articles.  After reading her article, and viewing some of her 3,000-plus postings regarding middle-eastern events, she has generated a distinguishable authority regarding content from that particular region of the world; which is one of the guidelines present in evaluating the credibility of a particular resource.  The author also presents the information from an unbiased perspective; there's no product or organization promotion, or even a personal stance regarding any social/political issues, she only publishes the verifiable facts regarding the issue at hand.  Kershner also provides current information with links from additional NY Times articles that verify relevancy, and the subject can be fully covered in WWW sources.  Thus, substantiating her stance regarding her content.

Kershner, as well as other contributors to online publications, adhering to the specific guidelines providing credible content is essential for followers to be informed to the fullest extent.  Illustrating the opposite, providing unrestricted web publishing, can have a catastrophic effect.  Unrestricted web publishing holds this capability because the posting of unverified content can be misleading to all parties involved.  Providing false or incomplete information, biased information, outdated information, information without credible sources, could possibly result in conflict between two groups of people who ordinarily would not have any involvement with one another.  The misinformation could additionally create a hostile attitude toward a particular region or group of people that, in some cases, could also result in lives being lost.  In any case, whether residential or global, unrestricted web publishing has the potential to cause tragic damages to a society.  Therefore, it is of the responsibility of its contributors to hold themselves and adhere to a higher standard in order to maintain credibility, order, and also peace.