Google CEO: the Internet is a cesspool

With no barriers to entry and nearly frictionless production and distribution, it’s easy for false information, lies, doctored images, and other forms of deception to infiltrate the Internet.

And Web crawlers aren’t particularly good at making judgments about the truthiness of digital matter, and the wisdom of the crowd can’t keep up with the river of data streaming online.

Who said that?

No, it is not another complaining newspaper editor.

It is Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressing magazine executives visiting the Googleplex, as CNET reports.

Schmidt gave the magazine publishers hope for their future. Brands, he said, are the way to rise above the cesspool.

Dan Farber, editor in chief of CNET News, is less optimistic:

“Brands, even those with long, venerable histories and massive ad budgets, can be decimated as we have seen over the last decade and in the current economic nuclear winter, with banks, automakers, publishers, and retailers fading away.

Offline revenues, especially for newspapers, have been in steady decline, and online revenues are not making up the difference. As a result, there is less editorial investment from so-called mainstream media in the primary and investigative reporting that is often fodder for blogger refactoring.”

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