On Friday April 4, in the afternoon the audience of The Next Web Conference watched the world premiere of the documentary The truth according to Wikipedia from IJsbrand van Veelen.
The video led to heated debate between the maker of the documentary and some of the audience members and even during the party afterwards people where still discussing the video. Tessa Sterkenburg posted a follow-up post here on Sunday which received 17 comments (so far) and even Larry Sanger (from Citizendium), one of the people interviewed in the documentary, pitches in.
Last night it was shown on Dutch television (VPRO Backlight) and a few minutes ago it has been uploaded to YouTube too. This is one video that everyone who has anything to do with the Internet should see. The questions it raises are far from answered so I look forward to your ideas about it in the comments here. Some of the leading questions in the documentary were: Should we let just anyone state his or her opinion or should we leave the publishing of information to the experts? Could the openness of the web be dangerous? Who has the right to establish truth?
But first, the movie:
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0]
UPDATE: here is an older 50 minutes documentary from IJsbrand van Veelen which he made in 2006 which gives an in-depth look in the world of Google. Some of the questions addressed here are: “What if all the world’s information would be available and easy to find? What if all the news, all books, all texts, photographs and videos would be collected in one place, and made available, always and everywhere?”.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBNDYggyesc]
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.