“Consider the source.” That’s advice too seldom heeded, especially when it comes to information on the Internet. The problem is exacerbated by the rise of what I’ll call social referencing, where the average reader relies on other people they may or may not know personally to find what’s interesting. We see that “Fred” found X interesting. We like other stuff Fred liked, so we go there. Site X gains a certain credibility from Fred’s pointing to it that it may not deserve.

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