This is the chapter summary for the second chapter of my book on Information Integrity You can read the full chapter here.
Like truth, information integrity can be hard to approach, so we’ll start with something more familiar, food integrity. This book, like the food you eat, has a non-zero chance of becoming a permanent part of you. Ubiquity and concrete consequences make food integrity a useful point of reference for information integrity. Information is abstract, but negative examples can create clarity. For food integrity that means starvation and poisoning. For information, malware, phishing, and hate are information integrity issues. Disinformation and political speech are more nuanced challenges.
Building on basic notions established with food-integrity, we develop a conceptual framework for information integrity. Communication implies a successful transfer of information between people. Leveraging the scholarship of British philosopher Onora O’Neill, we’ll consider three basic requirements for successful communications: that information be available, interpretable, and assessable. When we decide to believe information we are making a decision about trustworthiness. O’Neill teaches that trustworthiness implies honesty, competence and reliability.
This chapter approaches information integrity from a personal perspective. Next we will step back from the personal perspective and consider a systems perspective on public and private information.