For years we’ve been hearing about the dangers of disinformation and “fake news.” To be sure, it is dangerous when tens of thousands of people embrace absurd stories because they reinforce their own world views. And experts tell us the dissemination of misinformation isn’t solely a function of bots out to sow disharmony for political or other nefarious purposes.
But sometimes the tales spun through the worldwide web are so ridiculous that they merit at least a head shake or chuckle. Take the recent story that decapitated human remains were discovered in Indiana’s Lake Monroe near Bloomington. Now sometimes things can get a bit crazy in that neck of the woods, but this story caps (or decaps) them all. Legend has it that the perpetrator of this heinous event was a nine-foot, 300-year-old snapping turtle prowling the murky depths of the reservoir.
Fortunately, in true investigative journalistic style, the South Bend Tribune’s Jack Colwell got to the bottom of the story and confirmed that it was a hoax – propagated through some 14,000 social media posts over the first few days. So, I guess it is safe to go back into the waters of Lake Monroe again.
Although fake news and disinformation seem to be at an all-time high, history is replete with fictitious accounts sucking in the most gullible members of society. For example, in 1897 a newspaper announced that Mark Twain was “dying in poverty” in London, which prompted his famous quote that “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
In more recent times, we have been told…
- A women murdered her roommate for sending too many Candy Crush requests.
- France banned work emails after 6 pm.
- Democratic leaders formed an evil cabal to engage in human trafficking and running child sex rings out of a pizza parlor in Washington, DC.
- Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump in 2016.
Well, you get the idea –- although I find the Trump endorsement particularly ironic since our former president was responsible for more than a few outrageous statements such as ingesting or injecting bleach to combat COVID-19.
However, we are all gullible at times I suppose. For my part, I once saw a picture on Facebook of a pod of whales swimming past Sleeping Bear Dunes in northern Michigan. For a few minutes I fell for that one hook, line and sinker. But then reality slapped me in the face like a wet fish as I questioned whether whales ever lived in freshwater lakes. Oh, and I had temporarily forgotten that the picture was posted on April 1.
On that note, maybe it is best to let Mark Twain have the last word on this subject: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”