By COREY LEVITAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the names of the first nine KKK-affiliated politicians were released by the hacker group Anonymous last week, the Internet exploded. Except that Anonymous never released any names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like Obama banning Christmas cards to American military members overseas, it was a hoax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I decided to investigate how and why these hoax stories spread so rapidly\u2014by posting one of my own and watching what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did a variation on the recent human-DNA-found-in-hot-dogs rumor, but stepped up the disgust level a notch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, I created a website called Food Safety Bulletin. It took a few hours and just $12 to register and host for a year. (GoDaddy was running a special.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, I created a piece of faux investigative journalism, revealing how scientists had recently discovered molecules in cow\u2019s milk consistent with human seminal fluid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I shared the story on my Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus accounts. In just three days, I had thousands of visitors, and 461 people shared the story on Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was my fake story that <\/em>believable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to my \u201creport,\u201d 345 samples of milk\u2014produced by 42 brands in California, Nevada, and Arizona\u2014tested positive for spooge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Tufts, the fictional spokesman for my fictional genetic food testing company, FoodGenix, commented for the story that \u201cIt is not our policy to speculate on how contaminants are introduced into the food we sample.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which sounds like just what a spokesman would say if he were real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the comments on my Facebook page were variations on \u201cEww!\u201d But others expressed sincere outrage, like \u201cWe need cameras everywhere MILK is processed\u201d and \u201cI drink almond milk too. But will not touch milk ever<\/em> now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way, the names of every single organization cited in my story were engineered to return zero hits for anyone who bothered spending 30 seconds to Google them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So why are people so willing to believe Internet stories\u2014and to incorporate the information into their worldview\u2014without taking the minimal effort required to discover whether they\u2019re true?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople won\u2019t take the time to question because there is so much noise on the Internet,\u201d says Dr. Janet Johnson, Ph.D., a social medial scholar and clinical assistant professor at University of Texas-Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The real problem, she says, isn\u2019t that people are gullible, but their lack of knowledge about fact checking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo create better digital citizens, we need to teach people how to evaluate a headline and a story,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other than checking Snopes\u2014which everyone should always do before sharing any supposed \u201cnews\u201d story\u2014how can you make sure what you\u2019re sharing isn\u2019t complete BS?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are four suggestions from Shannon Rauch, Ph.D. an assistant professor of psychology at Benedictine University at Mesa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) Get a Second Opinion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If the story is real, surely more than one other reputable news source will have covered it, right? Check on Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you can’t find the information published elsewhere, it’s likely because the other news outlets have done their research and rejected the story,\u201d says Rauch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if it has been widely reported, look at how the facts are presented elsewhere. \u201cThe recent story on the bacon-cancer link is a good example of this,\u201d she says. \u201cWhile the story appeared in many different places, the interpretation of the data varied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n