The Internet eliminates the distances between countries and penetrates the cracks of dictators' complaints so that any information, be it inconvenient or conciliatory, can be known from all over the world in less than 5 seconds. In another post we have seen different ways of how to get information on the internet quickly and effectively, emphasizing how Twitter is expanding and remains a point of reference in those events where the normal journalist cannot or cannot enter (see events in Iran and in China).
But the question now is: " But if one writes bullshit and passes it off as true, one cannot all fall into a great deception">
The internet hoax risk multiplies exponentially; to a slightly shrewd one who has several contacts, on social networks or between email addresses, it takes very little to run a fake, false and without foundation on the internet.
Then maybe it happens that a journalist, very lazy, of printed paper or of a popular online site, just to write a commercial piece, gives credit to that hoax without checking it and from that moment that bizarre and false news, becomes a truth for everyone.
Another typical case of online hoaxes and misinformation is that of spam emails or those chains of Sant'Antonio where it is written for example: "From next year MSN Messenger you pay, sign the petition and run this email" or "Turn on the internet, an e-mail in which Christmas greetings are made, do not open it otherwise the hard disk will be destroyed because the message contains a new code which the antiviruses do not see and which breaks the PC without having the possibility of bringing it back to life "and why do not quote: "This is a missing girl, send this email to all your friends and if anyone had seen her, contact the number ...".
Then there are the bizarre scientific legends with various conspiracies, alien visas and craft discoveries that would save or horrify.
As written in another article on how to recognize the viruses present on the emails received, these kinds of emails are viruses in all respects.
Among the most famous examples of legends on the internet we can quickly remember:
- The history of the Bonsai Kitten site, the one that sold glass bottles with live cats inside (even newspapers like Repubblica fell there).
- The sale of meat from children's bodies and dead fetuses in supermarket boxes in China or Thailand.
- John Titor and the man from the future that I talked about in the article on how to predict the future online.
Then there are some discussions and myths on which it will be difficult to clarify such as: - on 11 September, the missile on the Pentagon, the phantom air quarot, Bush who is at school and many other strange things of that day continue to be discussed.
- The moon landing was a television montage and they really went "> popes' party even if it is not known if they are real photos or not).
Don't you tell me you've never seen this kind of message?
Maybe you also turned them over to your friends via email?
Ahiahi !!
Then the problem becomes very serious when emails about job offers, lottery winnings and bank accounts arrive because in these cases, Spam is aimed at financial fraud and stealing money from the poor, inexperienced user.
We talked about this problem, the so-called "Scam" and how to deal with it in the article "Protecting online accounts from scams and hacker attacks".
I remember here the general rule that you must always keep in mind, never to ever communicate, neither by email nor by phone, data and passwords concerning services where there is money, therefore banks, post offices and online buying and selling sites such as Ebay or Paypal.
Returning instead to the fake news, the news of the last year is certainly the proliferation of caxxate that is found on Facebook, the most used social network in Italy and in the world.
There really is the competition for those who shoot it bigger, without profit, just to create the largest group or to have a little popularity online.
Since there are too many, it is useless to check them out, better not to listen to anything and take everything as a game, especially if you have unknown contacts.
To defend ourselves from misinformation and online hoaxes, we must start reading in English the most important site that talks about these things, which catalogs fake news and investigates dubious ones.
The website is called Snopes and is quite famous because many denials from there start worldwide when a bizarre and untrue story spreads on the net.
When you receive a strange email with something that can stink of legend or hoax, the first site to look for information is certainly Snopes.
To give it a try, you can try to write on the search engine of Snopes, the term Microsoft and see the many legends that have circulated over the years about the company that produces Windows.
Other sites always in English very competent and above all very updated are TruthOrFiction and Hoax Slayer.
In Italy and in Italian sites of this type, very careful to discover the most shared hoaxes on Facebook and other social networks, are Bufale.net and Butac.
Another important blog that deals above all with fake technology news is " Il Disinformatico " managed and written by a journalist who collects requests to investigate dubious emails that arrive and documents why a news is false or true.
READ ALSO: The Italian buffalo sites, between satire, invented news and disinformation
Knowing the truthfulness of the news in general and its source is very difficult and even the most famous agencies such as Ansa or AdnKronos often get dazzled.
The Internet is a fast vehicle with which to make up invented stories, but it is only an evolution of marketing techniques, politics and jokes that have always been used and that have found a way to echo themselves on the web.
The network is still the most reliable and credible source on which to inquire and web 2.0 allows you to deny live, through comments, from social networks or via a blog, the author and the inventor of any hoaxes.
