Some of you may have read about a study that supposedly showed that people who used Internet Explore had lower IQs than those who use other web browsers. The hoax fooled many major news outlets like the BBC, which picked up and reported on it.
The hoax’s perpetrators explain why they did it and their surprise that so many people did not seem to question the results, as if it were fairly common knowledge that IE users were stupid. They listed eight things that should have quickly indicated to people, especially reporters, that the story was fake.
Christopher Budd explores what the widespread and uncritical acceptance of this hoax story might tell us about ourselves and the media.
This study just looked like a joke.
Indeed, to judge the IQ of people on the browser on your computer?
With the same success can be determined by the color of IQ and socks. 🙂
It doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.
The word “checking” in “fact checking” used to mean verification. Today, “checking” in “fact checking” means limiting, lessening, restraining or controlling -- in short, it now means avoiding the facts and preventing them getting out. The “fourth estate” used to mean a free press that acted as a watchdog. Today, a “fourth estate” is the winter home of a billionaire media baron (as compared to his spring, summer and fall estates).
As for browser use, the preponderance of Infernal Exploder users has been explained and verified elsewhere -- most aren’t tech savvy enough to know there were other options, never mind install other browsers.
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