The misinformation superhighway seems to be traveling at warp speed this year. Several months ago I wrote a column called “Please don’t send anything to everyone you know” about the internet screeds that the wingnuts of the world forward to everyone in their address book without passing them through even the most rudimentary filter of credibility.
Ironically, two days after that column
appeared, our county’s major daily printed a Letter to the Editor that had
alarm bells going off in my head, and those of a host of other readers as well. Normally these things take about four seconds
to track down on snopes.com, but this one took almost thirty. It appears that as part of its budget cuts,
the county rag has done away with fact checkers, a point that was made in a
second Letter to the Editor by a reader who documented that not a single “fact”
in the first letter writer’s missive was even remotely true. But the paper had already given legitimacy
and credibility to an ugly urban legend.
As the
oft-quoted saying goes, We are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own
facts. Why did so many
people miss that memo?
What baffles me is that urban legends, mythical
stories, and general folklore are so astonishingly easy to spot if the brain is
switched on at even Energy Saving levels. These stories are more formulaic than romance
novels: Start out with a much distorted statement, pad
with patent delusions, cite bogus page numbers and dates, misquote a prominent
citizen to give it credence, and send to one’s entire distribution list with the
subject line in all caps. Voila!
Last
week, for example, I received an internet communication from an otherwise
intelligent well-educated La Jollan that had been sent to, apparently, everyone
he knew; the previous distribution lists
were stacked up below it, none of which had fewer than eighty names on
them. The topic – a current favorite in
the world of internet hysteria – was Obamacare, and more specifically, the
Ethics Panels (a.k.a Death Squads) that Obama has allegedly created to alleviate
the country’s burden of that cumbersome group, old people.
Of course, the first thing that made me
the taddiest bit suspicious was that the originator was illiterate. “You
may not be there yet, but what comes next [sic] our children? If your [sic] are
handy capped [oy sic]? This effects [sic] everyone we know.”
OK, so not everyone has access to them
new fangled spell checkers. The article
goes on to quote a woman doctor in Tennessee (I’m guessing by now she’s moved
to an unlisted country and changed professions) noting that she is a “real
person” and giving a link to her medical group’s on-line listing. As with most such internet info-mationals, a
whole lot of material having nothing to do with anything she actually said is
then inserted, including the telltale internet idiocy nebulous statement: “If you needed a lifesaving operation,
Medicare will not provide coverage anymore after 2013 if you are 75 or over.”
Another popular Obamacare rant I’ve
received from several curiously uninquisitive towns folk this year maintains
that Obamacare will require the microchipping of all Americans with their
medical and bank information and even a tracking device by March 23, 2013. (Alarm
bell #1: Like the federal government could ever be that efficient? Alarm bells 2-50 to follow.)
So here’s Inga’s short guide on how to
recognize internet – or Letter to the Editor - insanity:
(1)
Did
the writer finish third grade?
(2)
If
the bells going off in your head sound like klaxons, maybe it’s not true.
(3)
If
there is even a single phrase in capital letters accompanied by more than one exclamation
mark (“TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THIS!!!!!!”), YOU ARE BEING SCAMMED!!!!!
(4)
Does
the sender sent it to 150 people of his or her closest friends?
(5)
The
only thing a photo proves is that the sender has Photoshop. For example, a heavily circulated photo shows
Romney standing in front of an American flag with five children whose T-shirts
spell out the word “Money”. It was actually
a digitally altered Associated Press photo; the kids’ shirts actually spelled
Romney with the “R” being the Romney campaign logo and the letters “o” and “m”
on the kids’ shirts reversed.
(6)
Just
because a “real” person is quoted doesn’t mean they actually said anything
attributed to them. Check it out
yourself on snopes.com. (Yes, YOU.)
(7)
While
celebrities – and particularly politicians - say all manner of ill-considered
things, consider the source. The text of
a hilariously clueless speech by Romney that has made the rounds quotes him as
saying that he could relate to black people because his ancestors once owned
slaves. (They didn’t.) The “speech” was from a spoof article on the
satirical web site FreeWoodPost.com, which, incidentally, proclaims prominently
that it is a satirical web site and they are just funning you. (Another recent post: “Romney to supporters at rally: ‘Everyone here gets a car!’”)
(1) C’mon, really?
(2) “Are you SURE some yahoo didn’t send
you this?
(3) “Do you want people to think you’re
a yahoo too?”
Of course, it won’t help. But I’ve done my best.
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