The Viral Spiral of 2010 - FactCheck.org

Ever since FactCheck.org first launched in late 2003, they’ve been fielding questions from their readers about anonymous e-mails that travel from inbox to inbox like some kind of plague. They get so many that they launched their Ask FactCheck (link) feature three years ago. In 2008, they advised readers (link): "Assume all such messages are wrong, and you’ll be right most of the time." That advice still holds in 2010. 

Often, the message itself includes major red flags that should alert readers that the author is not to be trusted. Here are just a few of what we’ll call Key Characteristics of Bogusness:

• The author is anonymous. Practically all e-mails we see fall into this category, and anytime an author is unnamed, the public should be skeptical. If the story were true, why would the author not put his or her name on it?
• The author is supposedly a famous person. Of course, e-mails that are attributed to legitimate people turn out to be false as well. Those popular messages about a Jay Leno essay (link) and Andy Rooney’s political views (link) are both baloney. And we found (2006 link) that some oft-quoted words attributed to Abraham Lincoln were not his words at all.
• There’s a reference to a legitimate source that completely contradicts the information in the e-mail. Some e-mails will implore readers to check out the claims, even providing a link to a respected source. We’re not sure why some people don’t click on the link, but we implore you to do so. Go ahead, take the challenge. See if the information you find actually backs up the e-mail. We’ve examined three such emails (1) (2) (3) in which the back-up material clearly debunks the e-mail itself. One message provided a link to the Tax Foundation, but anyone who followed it would have found an article saying the e-mail’s figures were all wrong. Another boasted that Snopes.com had verified the e-mail, but Snopes actually said it was false. 
• The message is riddled with spelling errors. Ask yourself, why should you trust an author who is not only anonymous but partially illiterate?
• The author just loves using exclamation points. If the author had a truthful point to make, he or she wouldn’t need to put two, three, even five exclamation points after every other sentence. In fact, we’re developing another theory here: The more exclamation points used in an e-mail, the less true it actually is. (Ditto for excessive use of capital letters.)
• The message argues that it is NOT false. This tip comes from Emery, who advises skepticism for any message that says, "This is NOT a hoax!"
• There’s math involved. Check it. One message that falsely claimed more soldiers died during Bill Clinton’s term than during George W. Bush’s urged, "You do the Math!" We did (2008 link). It’s wrong.

Check out the "Best of" the Viral emails of 2010:

http://factcheck.org/2010/12/the-viral-spiral-of-2010/

Note: if you ever want to check out the veracity of an email, simply go to http://www.factcheck.org/ and do a search for the topic in question. 

Alternately, you can put it in the form of a question at: http://wordpress.asc.upenn.edu/ask-factcheck/ask-us-a-question/ .