Virus Scares and False Authority Syndrome

Fifth of Five writes: "Ran across this article on the IS-IT-TRUE.org site regarding False Authority Syndrome and the spread of virus misinformation by the media, users and Folks Who Probably Ought To Know Better. If you've ever watched the TV news and gritted your teeth over what is being presented as 'fact' this may shine some light on just how it got to be like this."

Comments

You just proved my point

[Wind_Walker]

Tell me, if this discussion had taken place in, say, a business board room, and I had suggested that the lack of accountability online could be solved by identification trackers, would you have stood up and called me a moron?

The fact that you can hide behind your screen and type insults to me without worrying about the person on the other end of the line means that you are not taking responsiblities for your own actions, because you don't have to.

Thank you for so succinctly proving my point.

Re:Our domain of knowledge

[Silverhammer]

Most environmentalists are crackpots.

Re:If that's the case...

[Yosemite Sue]

... just imagine what kind of poor information we must be getting about those domains.

Amen!

These days there seems to be more pseudo-science than real science making the news. Of course, the perpetual stereotype of the "scientist-who-wants-to-play-God-and-rule-the-worl d" probably doesn't help dispell the FUD surrounding biotech and medical science ...

Junk Science has some interesting articles if you're trying to sort through the hysterical reports about GMOs, pesticides, etc.

YS.

False Authority Syndrome, not just for virii

[nachoman]

I know this is a little off topic, but not really. It's dealing with the same issue of average old joe, or one who 'knows computers', giving out advice on a matter which they have done not research on or heard from someone else (who also is non-authoritative in the field).

One I hear a lot today is, you need to have a firewall on your computer or you will get HACKED!!! If you have a windows 98 box (i'm not talking about servers here), which is virus free and has the latest patches... You don't need to have a firewall. If you are running no server software or anything that would allow any connections into your computer, you don't have to worry about blocking port 80 and such.

The False authroity syndrome is not just to virii, but it's all over. What I have not found though is a good way to combat it...

Re:ultracrepidarian

[jeremyp]

Jeremy's one thesis:

1 If you have a document which starts with a list of 95 things, people will read the first five, get bored and return to Slashdot to complain about it.

If the engineer at XYZ tells the press that they are having problems with the Linux drivers for their latest video cards, the headline will come out:

XYZ cannot make Linux work with its video cards. Microsoft spokesman states "well that's the problem with these two bit amateur operating systems. Windows is the one true OS capable of supporting all of todays hardware."