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

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."