I get emails all the time about all kinds of internet "urban legends." I think the most current one I got was the claim that if you put your PIN number into an ATM machine backwards, it alerts authorities that you're in trouble-- in otherwards, if you're held up and brought to an ATM, punch in your PIN backwards and the cops will show up. This kind of information is total bosh, of course, and all over the internet. And there's all kinds of stuff like this. And some of it's damned dangerous.
In that vein, there's already disinformation being put out on the net about the 2008 election. The New York Times is reporting today that the Insight website, which is a vestige of a defunct conservative magazine that was funded by whacko Rev. Moon, claimed that the ever-popular "anonymous source" said that Hillary Clinton was preparing a preemptive attack on fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was covering up that he'd spent a period of his youth in an Islamic fundamentalist religious school in Indonesia.The problems with that story:
- Yes, Obama did go to an Indonesian school while his parents lived there, but the school was a secular school
- Obama has never tried to cover this up
- There is no evidence that Ms. Clinton was going to try to attack Mr. Obama with this
During the 2004 election, I watched in horror as John Kerry ran his incompetent campaign, allowing the most bizarre and outrageous claims to be made about him. The internet and email have opened up a whole new avenue for right-wing whacktards to spew their vomit. I'm hoping Americans are a little smarter this time around.
By the way, anytime you get some email claiming that Public Television is about to be shut down, or the ever-popular "Lights Out" (that someone flashing their lights indicates that they're about to kill you to gain entry into a gang), check it out on the Snopes website. It's dedicated to debunking internet myths and urban legends. Here's their entry debunking the PIN story.
They haven't gotten to the Clinton/Obama story yet.
