What would be absolutely possible is for a group to download Swift, set up their own instance with all sorts of fake information and publicize it as fact. However, our distributed, decentralized reputation system River ID would show that outside of that instances ‘ecosystem’ no one trusts those users, or the instance. If the administrators opt out of tracking…they also forfeit any sort of benefits that come from River ID (trust from users who don’t know you or your site). In this case falsifying information is indeed easy, but promoting it becomes self-defeating, as the more people who aren’t under your influence see it, the less authority your Swift instance (with all it’s fake reports) actually holds.

Here’s some more reading on this very subject – http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/wag-the-dog/

I am wondering about the issue of intentional misinformation issues.

In many instances, there are entities with a vested interest in preventing valid information regarding things such as voting, battles and even disasters, both natural and man-made.

For nearly any human effort, there exist a group of entities which would profit by either the details or the extent of a problem being kept from the public–and that can include relief agencies.

While tracking particular sources and their validity of reports is a step in the right direction, some entities, in particular governments and large corporations have access to the resources needed to generate thousands or even 100,00s of thousands of false data reports, flooding the system with misinformation.

I have no answers, and I’m not certain of the correct questions, but we can be certain that the limits to the amount of pain, suffering and death to which some entities are willing to go in pursuit of their own ends, seems to be limitless, and thus we need to be able to deal with such situations if/when they arise.