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Be Careful of Internet Hoaxes
As we move into this ever increasingly tiny world we have a supervillian to be on a look out for!
It can be stronger than the truth, faster than the send button on your keyboard, and it is able to leap from continent to continent in a single bound. It's Super Hoaxes!
Now hopefully you have learned over the years that Bill Gates isn't going to send you millions of dollars for forwarding emails, that not every child's photo that is in your inbox is really a child in need, that all of those scary stories about spiders under toilets and other insidious things are not true and that there are a lot of 'rest of the stories' that Paul Harvey didn't share with the world. What may come as a surprise to you (it did to me) is that people are now quoting books inaccurately.
Let me share with you what I mean.
You may know that The Reagan Diaries were published in May of this year. What I know you don't know is I have a dear homeschooling friend who sits on the other side of the political fence from me and sometimes we share information in the hopes of enlightening or poking at the other. Two days ago, she sent me an email with the following quote which was stated as having come from the Reagan Diaries:
"May 17, 1986. A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."
She said she had read about it on a liberal website that she visits and it had improved her opinion of Ronald Reagan greatly! She also said it gave her a chuckle.
I read it and thought to myself, well, Bush was a bit of a screw up in his earlier years, so I suppose it is possible, but my dh said the wording just didn't sound like Reagan. So he started searching. He went to Amazon and believe it or not, one of the reviews has that quote in it! He looked around and found that an article was up on Digg about it! But what he couldn't figure out was why in three months since the release of this book, this hadn't been in the news (Fox, CNN, Drudge...no where). Well, finally he found the answer at the Museum of Hoaxes I don't want to spoil the exact location of where this quote came from, but you should check it out.
I am upset however, that it was misrepresented and people everywhere have read it and felt like it was the truth. And it makes me worry what other untruths are floating around out there. We tend to believe what we see, but we have to change our mindset and be more inquisitive, more the doubting Thomas so we don't end up with egg on our face!
I kindly emailed my friend the hoax link and she responded with 'well, even I get got sometimes.' And that happens to all of us, but let's try to be more discerning and when you find out about a hoax, let others know! We can spread the word and stop the insanity!
BTW, just in case you have never tried ascertaining the truth of a matter, check out Snopes!
Be a thoughtful consumer of words!
I use Snopes all the time. It amazes me how many times the same hoax goes around and around.
I didn't know about the museum of hoaxes. Thanks for sharing.
Because of Jesus, Bobbie
Great post!!
August 23, 2007 2:02 PM
