The Internet will either help you... Or ruin you

I just made a short post on my other blog about a certain writer named Carmen Pedrosa. She wrote in a respectable paper (I'm not sure though if this will still be the case after her article) about a certain study from Harvard saying the Filipinos are the most gullible people in the world. Here's a screenshot of her article:

Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=669903&publicationSubCategoryId=64

I would not dwell how irresponsible she is for not doing careful research (or she was "not able or [does] not question information), but look at how Internet probably has ruin her career. We all know that one of the powers of the Internet is its capability to guarantee freedom of information/expression. And with this, everyone can just post anything in minutes without censorship. The Mosquito Press just did that. But note that The Mosquito Press is a satirical publication.

It uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental. Mosquito Press is not intended for readers under 18 years of age. - http://mosquitopress.net/faq

People should be very careful about quoting information from the Internet. We cannot just advocate for a body or commission that will censor the Internet (for one, because it is impossible) because its not being censored is the source of the Internet's success. So, on our part, we should do our best not to believe everything we read from different blogs and web sites. You do not need to do extensive research before you seriously believe a web site's report, but you should start to doubt your source when it asserts,

Filipinos scored 1,344,399 points, placing it first, ahead of the Trojans of 12th Century BC, who scored 1,086. “The gross Trojan Gump Index was higher than Filipinos’, but it was offset by the fact that the Trojans are a dead civilization,” said Dawson.

As I've said in the title, the Internet will either help you or ruin you. You should strive to become intelligent enough so that the latter will not happen to you.