Misinformation: mistrust, deception, fear ...

I bring to your attention the internet chain letter:
"Please take the time to read this: It could happen to you too!" Followed by some sensationalist drivel about gangs that lure woman using kids and an electrified door handle, AIDS needles in movie seats and vending machine coin returns, a virus entitled POSTCARD that wipes your entire hard drive, muggers that render you unconscious by having you smell 'perfume' they are pretending to sell ...

Its all rubbish! Its all forwarded by genuinely concerned and caring friends or family. And all of it makes me seethe with anger and frustration. What makes me so angry is the effect that this type of misinformation has. It spreads mistrust which blossoms into fear and leads people to further cocoon themselves in their insular worlds thus contributing further to a lack of understanding. What makes that anger burn white hot is that 9 times out of 10 these hoaxes are started by perfectly informed persons simply interested in marketing malicious fiction as fact.

Every time I get one of these dramatised emails I end up sending a (sometimes) polite email in return with reasons why the particular myth is a hoax and a request that they check the validity of any future emails they feel inclined to forward with the excellent tool that Google is or simply checking Snopes. I do however feel that I am fighting a losing battle. I could note that most of these emails use women as the targeted victims, are forwarded by women to other women and seems to prey on women in general. I could ask why that is and tirade about the implications of the answers. I'll leave that for another day.

I will however proceed to comment on the wealth of misinformation available on the internet. It varies from annoying but innocent misunderstanding of literary and scientific works leading to factual errors in school projects to malicious and far reaching misrepresentations in economics, medicine, politics and social order. There are childish sites maintaining that Britney Spears studied semiconductor physics or defaming the character of prominent politicians with outright lies. There are disturbing rumors internationally that South African water is undrinkable (and yes, South Africa has one of the highest water quality standards in the world).

All in all there is so much falsehood, lies, deception, misunderstanding and shoddy thinking on the internet that I am sometimes (only for very short times) in sympathy with crackpots who aim for the downfall of the internet.

In my opinion the problem lies with the unfortunate reality that people are far more inclined to accept information without questioning it than go through the inconvenience (slight as it is) to do a small bit of comparative research. The internet's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: it is open to all, virtually uncensored and allows instantaneous spread of information across the globe.

Any opinions, suggestions, harmful myths to contribute?