Dispelling FUD on news Web sites and blogs

Easily one of the biggest negatives of comments on blogs and Web sites is the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that is spouted off by users that is intended to confuse or deceive fellow users.

FUD is not always malicious, but it is usually spread by people who are strongly for or against something. For instance, Kent Fischer gets FUD on his blog from people who are against the Dallas Independent School District and vice versa.

FUD can be caused by passing along information that a person believes to be correct, but actually is false. Most often, however, FUD is a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation.

Virtually any Web site or blog that gets enough users will have at least some amount of FUD. The best beat bloggers, however, don’t allow FUD to take hold on their blogs. Those beat bloggers take ownership over the comments and community that forms on their beat blogs.

If one person posts FUD, it’s more than likely that others have the same beliefs. So rather than delete offending posts, many beat bloggers choose to directly respond to those posting FUD to correct them and sometimes admonish them. The SciGuy Eric Berger is very good at dispelling FUD.

Let’s look at a benign example. Recently Berger made a post about how most foreign students who come to America for science and engineering PhDs stick around after they graduate. Here is an an exchange from his blog

One user wrote about why he believes some people being educated in the U.S. are looking to move to other countries:

The trend is reversing because this country is not funding
enough research. Taiwan is. Korea is. China is. Canada is. I will have
exceptional mobility once I have my PhD. I am going to go where the
science is being done. Whether that is a city in the US or Seoul is
largely irrelevant to me. Any modern country with reasonable freedoms
will do. I you want me here, you’d better cough up the money.

Berger responded with:

While some of this might be true, the U.S. still funds about 40 percent of the world’s science R&D.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9347.pdf

Has the country made some poor choices and has the budget tightening
of the last several years hurt? Unquestionably. But in many (though not
certainly all, such as superconductors) fields your best bet for
cutting edge research is right here.

So, while it may be true that the U.S. has cut down on R&D spending recently, it still spends a lot on R&D compared to the rest of the world. In fact, Berger’s post, Do most Chinese students come here to steal secrets? was an attempt to dispel FUD perpetrated by a U.S. Congressman.:

In any case, this fear was probably most bluntly articulated by U.S. Rep. John Culberson,
whom I heard speak on this issue a few years ago at a science luncheon
in Houston. Many professors from local universities were there. During
a Q&A, the Congressman was asked about the problem with
foreign-born students obtaining visas after 9/11. He responded:

“A concern that I continue to see is that a lot of those
scientists from communist China, my impression is, and correct me if I
am wrong, come here and learn as much as they can, and then leave. And
I’m not really all that much into helping the communists figure out how
to better target their intercontinental ballistic missles at the United
States. They basically steal our technology for military applications.
And they are red China, let’s not forget.”

The answer is a strong no. Berger points out that the five-year stay rate of students from China is 92 percent. That’s higher than India, Taiwan and South Korea. The majority of foreign doctoral students in the sciences come from those four countries.

Berger does not allow disinformation to be spread from his blog. He actively engages his users and takes ownership over the conversation on his blog.

Is it irresponsible for news organizations to allow FUD to go unchallenged? Is this another reason why beat reporters and bloggers need to take responsibility for the comments on their own stories and posts?