Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Email Truths and Lies

Sometimes, people send out malicious lies about people, such as the infamous "Obama is a Muslim" email that STILL has some people believing Obama is a secret Muslim. This one, of course, has been widely disseminated, and as truth, no less.

On the other hand, sometimes a letter goes out that probably IS actually true.. This one is about everyone's favorite non-women's woman, Sarah Palin. Snopes.com has indeed verified the authenticity (I was going to say veracity, but I didn't feel like being alliterative). Let's hope this letter makes the rounds just as much as the "Obama is a secret Muslim" email and causes as much damage to Sarah Palin and her reputation as the Muslim letter did to Obama.

5 comments:

BrooklynWolf said...

To be fair, all Snopes verified is that the person who wrote the letter did indeed do so. That does not mean that the contents of the letter are necessarily true (or false, for that matter).

The Wolf

Am Kshe Oref - A Stiff-Necked People said...

I'd say someone writing from personal experience probably has more legitimacy than that stupid anonymous Muslim email going around the internet. And many of the claims in the letter are charges that are readily available to find.

BrooklynWolf said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BrooklynWolf said...

I'd say someone writing from personal experience probably has more legitimacy than that stupid anonymous Muslim email going around the internet.

And I would agree with that statement.

My point was that when people hear "verified by Snopes" they tend to think that it means that it's true. All I'm pointing out is the fact that Snopes' verification was limited to confirming the identity of the author. I wasn't making a comment one way or the other about the actual contents of the letter.

The Wolf

Am Kshe Oref - A Stiff-Necked People said...

And I'm not disagreeing with you point! :-) See? We agree.

I just find it sadly ironic that a rumor that has been verified UNTRUE still has people believing in it veracity (there, I got to use the word!), while several letters, which or may not be partially or wholly true does not get the same attention as "Obama is a Muslim." After all, these facts about Palin (some of which HAVE been verified) are a lot more damning than the Obama Muslim thing.