Get Your Antennae Up!

26 Apr, 2004 by John Hawkins

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The first rule of the internet, the very first one, is “don’t believe everything you hear”. That seems simple enough doesn’t it?. After all, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that something you receive in an email, see on a message board, or read on a web page with pictures of Elvis driving a flying saucer on the front page, probably isn’t something you’re going to want to bet the farm on. Only the ignorant, the gullible, or conspiracy theorists are going to be snookered by sources that dubious.

Then there are the biased sources, like Newsmax, The Village Voice, or even Right Wing News 😉. Since these sorts of websites don’t try to hide their partisan leanings, the reader can consider himself forewarned that people of a different ideological stripe might have a different take on the same issues. For example, if you went to Eschaton, a left-wing blog, and saw a headline that stated “George W. Bush wants to grind up fluffy kittens to help Haliburton profit margin,” your antennae would go up — because you know this a left-wing blog — and you’d naturally take what you read with a grain of salt.

But, what gets people into trouble are the sources and articles that seem reliable, yet actually are about as trustworthy as the political info you get from your friend’s cousin’s mother’s brother after he finishes off his second pitcher of beer at Pizza Hut. And that’s where I come in. (Cont)