2 percent of Americans trust everything on the Web

(Credit: HolasPhilosophy/YouTube Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

It seems that, in this election year, we're all obsessed about the 1 percent.

Today, I would like to discuss the 2 percent. We must decide what to do about them, before it's too late -- both for them and for us.

I am in possession of a devastating piece of research commissioned by a company called Mancx.

This is not an organization dedicated to people who come from Manchester, England, and talk with accents derived from a depressed power drill.

Instead, this is a business question-and-answer site where real people can actually buy and sell information, which sounds rather exciting, in a capitalistic sort of way.

Mancx was very keen to discover whether people trusted what they read on the Web. What the company discovered, on talking to almost 2,000 Americans, was that there is a heartening skepticism.

Indeed, many, many Americans are skeptical about whether information they find online is outdated (56 percent), or whether the presence of too many ads suggests bias (59 percent). They worry that, in seeking answers, the results they are given are being promoted by interested parties (53 percent).

The startling headline Mancx offers from this work is: 98 percent of Americans distrust the information they find on the Internet.

One cannot help... [Read more]