Tuesday, April 06, 2010

On Snopes

This evening's link is a NY Times write-up on the Mikkelsons, the founders of the wonderful Snopes.com, fact-finding web sight.


While I have not been to snopes in quite a long time (it can really suck hours away before you realize it), it is the Snopes website that I owe much of my desire for inquiry to. There was a time back in the day when the internet was only good for one thing: E-mail forwards. And there were tons of them...


Some claiming that a child's life will be saved if you forward this e-mail to ten people and another telling you about the latest government conspiracy.


Enter in Snopes which essentially sought to investigate  these vast array of internet rumors and either validate or prove false these said rumors that were spreading like wild fire.


And this is where I think I first learned that not everything heard or read is true.

Favorite quotes from the article: (regarding the naivety of readers to embrace rumors) "it’s people wanting confirmation of their world view."


"When you’re looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn’t stand a chance." 

No comments: