Get Off the Page

Takeaways

• ► Cheap signals are easy to come by and easy to manipulate. The days of thinking you can tell whether a site is trustworthy just by looking at it—or even looking at it carefully—are over.
• ► The credibility checklists we grew up with have outlived their usefulness. Checklist-type questions—Is a site free of typos? Is the language unbiased? Is there contact information? Has the site recently been updated?—can do more harm than good. Bad actors study these lists and design their sites accordingly.
• ► Even features that require government approval, like nonprofit status, can be gamed by crafty groups that have figured out how to outsmart the IRS.
• ► Bad actors will link to authoritative websites just to bask in the glow of their authority. In some cases, links may contradict the claim they are supposed to support.
• ► Get off the page: check what independent sources say about an unfamiliar website instead of relying on its “About” page or following only its own links.

The Cataract Story

Have you ever been the family googler? The person frantically searching “is Styrofoam bad for birds?” or googling for your brother “does this look sprained?” (In order: yes, and it was.)

Sometimes we search for ourselves and sometimes for others. But the challenges are the same. The phone rings, and it’s your grandmother in Denver. She’s been getting headaches from cataracts, a condition where the eye clouds up and the world greets you through a dirty windshield. The neighbors, as usual, have advice: try medical marijuana, legal in Colorado since 2000. It’s a cataract miracle drug!

And so, it comes to pass that your nana tells you that the good folks next door are going to pick up some five-star weed down at the local dispensary. Problem solved.

Or is it? Here’s the thing about medical treatments, whether pot or pills: getting the wrong treatment is always risky. Even if there’s no immediate harm, people often delay needed treatment while trying alternatives. It’s important to know whether Nana’s neighbors know what they are talking about—or if they’re just blowing smoke.

You type “cataracts marijuana” into your search engine. You’re about to hit enter when you hear a voice in your head. Stop, it says—the first step of SIFT.

Figure 3.1 Google result for “Does marijuana help cataracts?” (Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google LLC.)

It’s not that we’re for or against Nana’s newfound cure, especially if it alleviates suffering. But pausing here is crucial. Too often we approach Google like throwing dice: “Let’s just see what comes up.” But if we don’t have a decent idea of what we’re looking for before starting, it will be harder to know when we’ve found it.

What kinds of sources would best answer the question? A statement from a pot-industry spokesperson? A journal article on the chemical makeup of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)? Or something short. Authoritative. Something that doesn’t take hours to wade through?