I recently received an e-mail stating that African Americans are now eligible for a “Black Inheritance Tax Refund” thanks to a “Slave Reparation Act” — and giving detailed instructions for how to apply.
With tax season upon us, what a great story!
Only problem is, it’s not true.
Unfortunately, that applies to much of what we find online. With April Fool’s Day approaching, it’s a good time to remind ourselves never to trust anything in an e-mail or on the Web.
Pick up the phone. Talk to a human being. Always get a second source — and make it an offline one — before printing something. And please remember to attribute.
Even The New York Times learned this the hard way.
After getting an e-mail that listed how American movie titles had been translated into Chinese, writer James Sterngold included them in a story, without citing his source. Among the titles listed: “Leaving Las Vegas” became “I’m Drunk and You’re a Prostitute”; “The Crying Game” became “Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!”; and “Babe” became “The Happy Dumpling-To-Be Who Talks and Solves Agricultural Problems.”
The translations, invented by TopFive.com, turned out to be false, and The Times had to print an embarrassing correction.
Not only that, but the movie titles were later repeated — as true — by ABC News, CNN and the Los Angeles Times. (More cyber slip-ups)
Often it can be hard to tell whether Web sites themselves are trustworthy. Check out http://www.whitehouse.net and http://www.gwbush.com, for example. Then check out http://www.whitehouse.gov and http://www.georgewbush.com.
And even non-hoax sites can be misleading. Last fall a 20-year-old hacked into Yahoo’s news section and rewrote part of the text of a Reuters story about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — so deftly that only an expert on the subject would have detected them.
Scores of sites are hacked every day. Usually — but not always — the changes are quickly discovered and removed. But remember, any time you look at a site online, that could be the moment after it got hacked. Do you want to base your story, your reputation, and your career on that chance?
Sree offered two great sites for keeping track of online rumors and hoaxes a few months ago.
Next week I’ll offer a few more suggestions on how to verify information online.
But my best advice is to double-check any information you get from the Web or e-mail — offline.
And remember, don’t trust anything you read online. Including this.
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