Rumours, Lies and Innuendo Spread Far, Wide and Fast on The Internet

From the image above, you can conclude that you should not believe anything you read from the internet, although it is from a large or trusted site. Because everybody can publish anything on the internet, but the problem is today’s most people are not prepare to critically evaluate the information they find there. They just believe anything directly. I meant when people looking for an article and search it on Google, they will click on the first listing at the top of the results page and take a quick look, then continue down the list without studying the source of the website to figure out whether it’s best source of information.

Honestly, I don’t often take what is on the internet as truth without thinking much about it. Why I could say like that? Because from my personal experience and because I’m kind of people who like to search. When I got news, for example from my friend’s status on twitter I will go check for the truth. I will believe it if there is the author named or the organization that is responsible for the truth of the article.

I have an example that related to this topic from my recent personal experience. I have read my friend’s status on twitter about The Strokes (one of my favourite American band) will perform in Kuala Lumpur on 6^th August 2011 at Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil. Of course when I read it, I got shocked and really excited. But on the other side, I also think like “is it for real?”. Then I checked it on the internet. I searched some articles that related to this news, and the result is I found this flyer. 

I was more excited when saw this flyer, because I saw the concert was sponsored by Maxis, Malaysia Airlines, Mtv, Junk, and Astro. Those are big companies and I think they will not spread the lies. But I didn't just stop, I checked for another trusted site, I opened The Strokes official website and saw their tour dates and sure enough they don’t have event on  6^th August 2011 their upcoming event is on 13^th August and that is not in Kuala Lumpur, but in Tokyo. 

Another example is about “Facebook Will End on March 15^th, 2012”. 

I read it from weeklyworldnews.com. In this article, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will be shut down because managing the site has become too stressful. “Facebook has gotten out of control,” said Zuckerberg in a press conference outside his Palo Alto office, “and the stress of managing this company has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness.” Of course many people got upset when read this article, including me. I think that his reason is no sense, I meant why he should shut down the Facebook if he got much money from it? Then I looked for the truth from another site, and the result is it is just Hoax news. According to http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, The "Weekly World News" article went on to quote another company official, Avrat Humarthi, vice-president of technical affairs at Facebook, as saying "After March 15th the whole website shuts down. So if you ever want to see your pictures again, I recommend you take them off the internet. You won't be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business."

So, the conclusion is don’t believe everything you read on the internet, and think twice before you pass a story or news on to your friends. Be critical, you better search the truth first before pass give the information to another people than giving them fake information. Although a hoax is not as serious as malware worming its way between users and stealing information, it's still a nuisance, clogging up communications, increasing the overall level of spam and perhaps leading people to make decisions for the wrong reasons.

Hijja Ania - 1092700994