Dangers of the blogosphere

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One of the advantages of getting your news from the blogosphere is that you get your news about 12 hours before everyone else does. Rarely does something major on the front page of the Times catch me by surprise. But the blogosphere has its perils: it's easy to float a story and get it spread around before it gets checked. (Then again, the main stream media wasn't exactly rigorous in some of its Iraq reporting either.) Here's a prime example: a story that Iran was going to pass a law requiring people of non-Islamic religions to wear identifying marks on their clothing. Well, it turns out that it is probably false, but it is already so widespread that it will be hard to stamp out the rapidly spreading meme.
 
I was going to blog this item, and I'm glad now I waited (though I admit it was more due to laziness than skepticism on my part).
 
Andrew Sullivan asks the next logical question: who put this out there and why? There is evidence that it is war-mongering propaganda from the neo-cons. See this diary on DailyKos. If true, this is very scary. We must not be duped into yet another war by this gang of decietful incompetents.

Comments

christina said…
That's why we should get our information from all sides' posts/ news/pages/talks etc. Unfortunately, many people reject everything posted/said/broadcasted by "the other side" without checking if may be true.
7:06 PM, May 21, 2006
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