Fact-Checking Chain-Mail: Misinformation in a World of Information

I think you can relate. Everyday, without exception, I receive eighty-two work related e-mails and 1,236 chain-letters from people throughout the planet, along with the odd signal from the cosmic microwave background radiation in outer-space. Today was no exception.

I received an e-mail about a prominent restaurant in Atlanta that had been shut down for allegedly using mice as a chicken substitute. Of course this was presented with visual stimuli to legitimize their claims, so presented to me in the e-mail were pictures of neatly packed, vacuum-sealed rodents acting as exhibit ‘A’ for a jury from which they never sought judgment.

For starters, I have family that lives in Atlanta so naturally I was wondering if they’d eaten there recently or have, at the very least, heard about this. Before causing them unnecessary distress (aside from what I try to give them on a consistent basis), I figured I’d do something out of the ordinary:

Fact-check.

I didn’t see a single story about this from a reputable source. Not one. Naturally, I smelled a hoax so I checked out Snopes.com, which is a source I often seek to sniff out sensationalized chain-mail on the web. Namely bullshit.

Bingo! What my painstaking 36-seconds of research had led me to realize was that this story had already been classified as false, and further, this story began promulgating itself on the internet since 2004. In the version I received, it looks like it was embellished a bit more than the version shown on Snopes. This version included the names of prominent musicians in what appears to be an effort to sensationalize the scandal. Oooh. Ahhh…

So what’s the deal?

From Snopes.com:

Origins: The text accompanying these photographs is just a bit a fiction created as someone’s idea of a jokes, especially since we haven’t found any reports of closure of an Atlanta restaurant and the arrest of its owners. (The message is typically non-specific, as most hoax e-mails are, bearing no date, address, or names.) These pictures were taken from the Dumeril’s web site and are photographs of rats packaged not for human consumption, but as food for captive snakes.

So why the fuss about chain-mail? Is all of this really about that? Yes and no. This goes to the core of something much deeper. We are in an information age now, with the ability to do research with resources unparalleled in history. Before the pen, before the phone, television, internet, newspaper, radio - your source of information was by word-of-mouth. They had an excuse. What’s ours?

Well. We have a problem here.

It turns out that it’s more complicated than it seems. The paradox is that we are deluged with an unprecedented amount of information from all angles, and a variety of mediums. If that alone wasn’t overwhelming enough, we are in the midst of another presidential election race in North America. It’s no wonder people readily accept things so easily. It’s a lot more convenient, especially if they want to believe it’s true. Even if you do sift through the pile of madness, the complexity of it all is exacerbated when you have former White House press secretaries outing the government on their cozying up to a specific prominent media outlet. Are the media always honest with us? So who can we believe these days?

With so much information out there fueled by the ulterior motives of ideologies, political power, or monetary incentives, it’s no wonder it’s so easy to give up on trying to find out what’s really going on. And for the ultra-political with an agenda, truth takes the backseat when the most pressing concern is their party’s victory, or it’s the ‘wedge issue’ for the neo-conservative who prioritizes their vote on it–everything else be damned.

This frustration is palpable for your average person. It’s often easier for them to forgo seeking information, especially when it can come looking for them. And that it does.

With that comes the most effective campaign method of militant friends and family who want their loved ones to be on their side: the politically charged chain-letter coupled with a grudge and a merciless, unyielding color scheme designed to make even the most ardent dissenter defer.

We need a constant reminder to be more vigilant about the information we absorb on a daily basis that we readily dispense as truths. Even my source, Snopes.com, touched on the phenomenon of ‘false authority’, requesting that even they be scrutinized only after having to spread false legends of their own to make that point clearer. (Ironically, an Urban Legends T.V. show fell for a hoax that Snopes.com verified as ‘true’ when it actually was not.)

It goes to show that no one is foolproof. Be more discerning in the information you hear and question its validity. Contrary to popular belief, that is a responsible form of patriotism. It’s not uncommon for a person to hear something that they wish to be true and actually believe it is for that reason alone, and then pass it on to you.

Your e-mail client most likely has a spell-checker. As for that fact-checker; it doesn’t come standard. That’s on you. The chain-letters will come pouring in regardless, but there is a solution: The next time your dainty grandmother CC’s her lineage to tell everyone they’re promised a dollar from Bill Gates if they forward the e-mail, ‘Reply-all‘ IN CAPS with a demand for sources. Eventually the family will realize you’re no fun, disown you, and grandma will bequeath all of her possessions to your little sister.

Hey, no one said being a purveyor of truth wouldn’t be a struggle.