Reading Report #1

“Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet”
By Paul S. Piper

This article starts out talking about misleading websites and information. It also talks about how though the information is misleading it is not always false some sites are matters of opinion. The article discusses many types of ways the internet can be misleading. A counterfeit site is a site that poses as a legitimate site that gives out misleading information. The author identifies some specific counterfeit sites about Dr. Martin Luther King, the World Trade Organization and the Makah tribe. A suspicious website is a website that gives misleading information about academic discourse, for example saying certain events were proven not to have happened and so on. The author discusses the meaning of disinformation as deliberately giving false information. The author then goes on to talk about September 11th and how internet site were collecting money for victims and how some of these sites were false. Fictitious sites which are not primarily humorous and are not parodies but also misleading. Parodies and spoofs counterfeit an actual company or organizations website. The article ends by providing readers with websites used track false and misleading internet sites.

Overall I found this article to be very interesting. It provided me with a lot of information about misleading information on the internet. I always knew that some websites were false but I never knew that there were so many different types and that some were so easy to miss. It is good to know this information especially being in college because when someone is writing papers and so on you really need to make sure that the information that you are using is correct. Also I feel like people really need to find something better to do with their lives. It take a lot of effort to create website that could be thought of a legitimate and I just feel like all that effort these people are putting in could really just go to a much better place. It actually is annoying that some people find pleasure and accomplishment lying to and misleading people.