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Author
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Topic: Do you have gullible friends and relatives filling your inbox with garbage?
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GrumpySteen
Solid Nitrozanium SuperFan
Member # 170
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posted May 10, 2012 15:16
If this ever goes live, you may want it.
Wild rumours - such as the myth that Barack Obama is a Muslim - do the rounds for years, even though they have been repeatedly debunked. LazyTruth aims to combat this by delivering kernels of truth right to your inbox. When it recognises the unique phrases that turn up in viral emails it displays a rebuttal sourced from fact-checking websites such as Snopes.com and FactCheck.org.
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Worst. Celibate. Ever.
Posts: 6290 | From: Tennessee | Registered: Jan 2000
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The Famous Druid
Gold Hearted SuperFan!
Member # 1769
Member Rated:
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posted May 10, 2012 18:27
Snopes and Factcheck are just pawns of The International French/Irish Catholic Sodomite Conspiracy
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If you watch 'The History Of NASA' backwards, it's about a space agency that has no manned spaceflight capability, then does low-orbit flights, then lands on the Moon.
Posts: 10312 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Oct 2002
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dragonman97
SuperFan!
Member # 780
Member Rated:
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posted May 10, 2012 18:47
Well, I suppose that obviates the need to actually visit Snopes - which I do via Google, but I don't like the idea that it would essentially be snooping on your e-mail. That's almost as bad as the original problem.
Also, this sort of thing, much like Snopes, is self-selecting. People who wouldn't visit Snopes, wouldn't install this - they have no problem remaining ignorant - life is apparently more fun that way. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Yesterday, I figured out and solved a wiring issue by using an ohmmeter. This was in contrast to someone else just trying random permutations that had little chance of working. If said party had a better sense of humor, I very much would have liked to have read this aloud (or had the t-shirt): http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#Science (Facts are just awesome! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
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There are three things you can be sure of in life: Death, taxes, and reading about fake illnesses online...
Posts: 9037 | From: Westchester County, New York | Registered: May 2001
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GrumpySteen
Solid Nitrozanium SuperFan
Member # 170
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posted May 11, 2012 00:07
It's not clear from the article, but the idea isn't to educate you. It's to provide you with facts and links that you can send back to educate the person who sent you the email.
It's entirely possible that the person you send the facts and links to will immediately dismiss you as a liberal/conservative/socialist/commie/part-of-the-conspiracy and ignore what you send, but at least you won't have put a lot of effort into what you send.
As for privacy, they haven't said anything about it and the app doesn't actually exist yet, so there's no telling whether it will be good or bad.
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Worst. Celibate. Ever.
Posts: 6290 | From: Tennessee | Registered: Jan 2000
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dragonman97
SuperFan!
Member # 780
Member Rated:
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posted May 11, 2012 01:08
Ahh...mea culpa - I thought it would be extra work to have to send the thing off and thought the point of the 'rebuttal' was that the clueless 'first recipient' would see it before forwarding. This is just to spare clever folks the effort of searching on Snopes.
Fortunately for me, I haven't gotten much of that junk in ages. Perhaps people have caught onto the fact that I don't find such messages nearly as fascinating as they do. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) Mind you, I've only broken out Snopes when I think the sender is actually going to follow some recommendation, and it might cause them to either lose money, or get hacked.
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There are three things you can be sure of in life: Death, taxes, and reading about fake illnesses online...
Posts: 9037 | From: Westchester County, New York | Registered: May 2001
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TheMoMan
BlabberMouth, a Blabber Odyssey
Member # 1659
Member Rated:
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posted May 13, 2012 09:45
Aye, me thinks that we have a bunch of wannabee Jack-O-Bites!
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If it don't glow it ain't Ham Radio
Posts: 5071 | From: Just South of the Huron National Forest, in the water shed of the Rifle River | Registered: Sep 2002
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zorgon
Assimilated
Member # 546
Rate Member
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posted May 21, 2012 15:32
My experience has been that if they send you that garbage they are not willing to be educated - at least, not by me (Fox News seems to be just fine, though). Everyone I know gets one chance to stop doing this (I invite them to do so politely but firmly, with no ambiguity), and if that doesn't work, they get blocked. No email, no Facebook, no electronic contact. I could say I've lost friends and family members this way, but with friends like those ...
Posts: 381 | From: Beautiful Uptown Goleta | Registered: Sep 2000
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