Finally, as a parent, I want to help my kids grow up savvy to a world of media where I won’t\u00a0be there to tell them\u00a0that chain letters on instagram are not true, whereas what they read on ESPN probably is.<\/p>\n
I was reminded of the problems with teaching online credibility detectors recently,\u00a0when\u00a0after the Supreme Court handed down the Hobby Lobby<\/em> decision, many people angry about the decision took to twitter to denounce the\u00a0judges. Unfortunately, many did not realize that the Supreme Court has no twitter presence. These people surely did not realize that the Supreme Court is not exactly a high tech<\/a> kind of place<\/a>. These angry tweeters denounced<\/a> what they thought was the Supreme Court, but was instead a blog which covers the Supreme Court. SCOTUSBlog, instead of correcting people, played along and mocked them mercilessly<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course SCOTUSBlog is not the official twitter feed of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n Of course the Supreme Court does not have a twitter feed, they haven’t even “gotten to email yet:<\/a>”<\/p>\n By their own admissions, the justices on the highest court of the land, the US Supreme Court, are not the most tech-savvy bunch. But despite Justice Elena Kagan\u2019s own acknowledgement that the court hasn\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>“gotten to” e-mail<\/a>\u00a0yet\u2014instead communicating with one another via\u00a0memos printed on ivory paper\u2014the justices have been tasked with solving\u00a0some of the most thorny technology debates\u00a0of our time.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But we shouldn’t mock these tweeters, but seek to understand why they were so misled. And when we do, we should be concerned that new arbiters of credibility have emerged, and they are not necessarily the ones we expect.<\/p>\n To begin, let’s look at the twitter profile<\/a> of SCOTUSBlog. The bio says:\u00a0A private blog about the Supreme Court of the U.S. Contact: feedback@scotusblog.com.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, that should be open and shut: “private” as in, not public. As in, not official.<\/p>\n But what about other indicators of credibility?<\/p>\n SCOTUSBlog has a shiny blue verified check<\/a>. Twitter says this identities authenticity, but I think\u00a0this spreads well beyond a simple: “This account is who it says it is.” That blue check means legitimacy and credibility to many many people.<\/p>\n SCOTUSBlog has 185,000 followers. Certainly follower count doesn’t equal credibility, but it sure helps.<\/p>\n What\u00a0if we look at SCOTUSBlog’s webpage header? This is what our Hobby Lobby tweeters saw on June 30th:<\/p>\n This looks pretty official to me. Although the “sponsored by Bloomberg Law” should be a give-away that this is not an official government site, the name Bloomberg and the bureaucratic design make me think it is perhaps less of a give-away than it should be.<\/p>\n And now, they have changed the web header to:<\/p>\n Even more official looking!<\/p>\n I\u00a0am pointing this out not to say that SCOTUSBlog is being misleading, I think they are doing fantastic legal journalism, and I applaud them for it. Their webpage is simple and well designed.<\/p>\n![\"Header](\"https:\/\/riener.us\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ScotusBlog-1-300x61.jpg\")
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