…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
Hoax earthquake SMS creates panic in northeast, Sify News, April 28, 2010
US veteran charged in airline bomb hoax, AFP, April 28, 2010
Hoax AMBER Alert spread quickly, ABC-7.com, April 28, 2010
Hoax “˜Death Calls” Made to US Families, Military.com, April 22, 2010
Splinter Cell Publicity Stunt Almost Gets Someone Shot, everydaynodaysoff.com, April 20, 2010
image: windsun.com
Submitted by Eliane Arquin:
The Net’s Most Heinous Hoaxes
by Sarah Jacobsson
PC World
We look at some of the meanest (and a few of the funniest) hoaxes on the Web.
Most online hoaxes are mildly annoying, and a few are hilarious. But propagating a false Amber Alert over Twitter? Plastering an epilepsy forum with flashing images? Not cool. We’ll take a look at some of the Web’s most heinous hoaxes over the years, and sprinkle in a handful of amusing ones.
Twitter/Facebook Amber Alert
The Amber Alert system — a child abduction alert system broadcast over radio, TV, satellite radio and other media whenever a child is abducted — was created after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1996. Recently, some users have also broadcast alerts over text messages and Twitter.
Last July, someone tweeted an Amber Alert for a 3-year-old girl. People responded by spreading the alert as fast and as far as they could. It turned out to be a false alarm. A similar sequence of panicked, rapid-fire tweeting followed another false Amber Alert that occurred in September.
How heinous is this? Though we’re glad that no abduction occurred in either case, there’s a disturbing “cry wolf” aspect to the story — what happens the next time a real Amber Alert goes out? For eroding the value of a potentially vital line of defense against child abduction, this hoax sets the platinum standard for repugnance. Continue reading “The Net’s Most Heinous Hoaxes”
Top 2009 Resolution: Don’t Be Stupid
by Daniel Henninger
Wall Street Journal
January 8, 2008
Bernard Madoff revealed our thoughtless ways.
Back in olden times, mankind found it useful to live by mottoes. A motto reduces the helpful lessons of life to three or four words, maybe two, as in the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. Or, apropos now: Look before you leap.
The most famous motto in our time has been Google’s Don’t Be Evil. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but here’s a motto for the next four or five years: Don’t Be Stupid.
It would not have occurred to me to posit Don’t Be Stupid as a motto for our times had not 2008 ended with the Bernard Madoff story. Up to then, we were all preoccupied with the economic meltdown that began in mid-September with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other household gods of global finance.
The economic crisis, originating in the subprime mortgage lending phenomenon, was said to be complex. Madoff’s story, however, was simple. For years, uncounted numbers of the most sophisticated people here and in Europe conveyed to Mr. Madoff tens of billions of dollars because this solitary investor, unlike virtually every other professional investor, achieved returns in excess of 10% annually in all economic seasons. Continue reading “ADHD Investing”
Why We Keep Falling for Financial Scams
by Stephen Greenspan
The Wall Street Journal
January 3, 2009
Intelligent people have long been ruined by frauds. Psychologist Stephen Greenspan, who specializes in gullibility, explores why investors continue to be swindled — and how he came to lose part of his savings to Bernard Madoff.
There are few areas where skepticism is more important than how one invests one’s life savings. Yet intelligent and educated people, some of them naà¯ve about finance and others quite knowledgeable, have been ruined by schemes that turned out to be highly dubious and quite often fraudulent. The most dramatic example of this in American history is the recent announcement that Bernard Madoff, a highly regarded money manager and a former chairman of Nasdaq, has for years been running a very sophisticated Ponzi scheme, which by his own admission has defrauded wealthy investors, charities and other funds of at least $50 billion. Continue reading “The Gullibility Factor”
Submitted by Wayne Zebzda:
Frozen Sasquatch just a big rubber popsicle!
Researcher says bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit
by Juanita Cousins
Associated Press
August 19, 2008
Atlanta (AP) “” Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice “” handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it “” was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.
The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature were found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.
Steve Kulls, executive director of squatchdetective.com and host of Squatchdetective Radio, says in a posting on a Web site run by Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi that as the “evidence” was thawed, the claim began to unravel as a giant hoax. Read the rest of the story here.