Is it a Hoax or not?

Earlier this week, Dennis O'Connor and I offered a 'model lesson' at the ISTE Conference in San Diego. It was a full session, indicating interest in seeing how information fluency may be embedded in a session.

We probably attempted too much for a 60 minute session; we never did get to the fourth mini-lesson. In case you want to see our Lesson Plans for all four segments, you will find them here. Feel free to use them in your teaching.

The target for the lessons is Genochoice.com, a site that allows parents to create designer babies online. Fact checking claims and information on the site quickly turns up Red Flags. Most external references state that the site is a hoax, the claims are bogus.

I agree with bogus, but don't think it's really a hoax. The majority of information is made up. You can't "read" DNA using a thumb scan that is nothing more than a Flash movie embedded in a page. You can't determine if my medical insurance will cover the cost of genetic "improvements" based solely on my name. There's no evidence that you can "fix" genetic disorders. Someday that may be possible, but not yet.

What is a hoax? Most definitions boil down to "a deliberate deception." Some of the more malicious ones also attempt to defraud, which is not the case with Genochoice.  But while the information is deliberate, does it also aim to deceive?  I think it has a different purpose.

The profile of the author is the crux of the matter. It doesn't take long to determine that Virgil Wong is responsible for the content; he also owns the domain name. But is he a deceiver?

The inconsistency comes when you stop to consider why an artist-medical keynote speaker-PhD candidate-hospital webmaster would create a popular hoax site. Wouldn't that harm his reputation?


Bogus and Hoax sites present layers of challenges. Figuring out if they are bogus or a hoax is one layer. Deeper is: why does this site exist?

Ann Margret Death Hoax

While this hoax is still making its way around the blogosphere, there are a couple good investigative tips to point out.

I first heard the story on the radio this morning. When the people on the air tried to look it up on the Web, they noted that the site's URL was mediafetcher, which made them wonder if the story was really true.

Tip 1: For breaking news, go to Twitter. When I searched for ann margret death, I saw mediafetcher.com too and below that a comment about twitter. Since lots of breaking news comes first through twitter, I searched twitter for ann margret and saw a mixture of condolences and claims the story is a hoax.

Tip 2: Read the page. The definitive fact in this case was noted in a number of tweets: the web site claims the story is FAKE. True enough, look at the bottom of the mediafetcher page:

FAKE... THIS STORY IS 100% FAKE! this is an entertainment website, and this is a totally fake article based on zero truth and is a complete work of fiction for entertainment purposes! this story was dynamically generated using a generic 'template' and is not factual. Any reference to specific individuals has been 100% fabricated by web site visitors who have created fake stories by entering a name into a blank 'non-specific' template for the purpose of entertainment. For sub-domain info, name removal requests and additional use restrictions: FakeAWish.com
Copyright © 2012 FakeAWish.com All rights reserved.

Best to do a little checking before ordering flowers.

This site may be one to watch for other fake breaking news for teaching purposes.

As for the purpose of the mediafetcher site, wouldn't you say that's a dark spin on defining 'entertainment?' If you want a challenge, find the top 10 domains operated by the individual(s) behind this hoax entertainment site. It gives you some context.

IE IQ Hoax

Too bad this study of IE users' IQ was already exposed as a hoax. It would have made a great challenge.

Here's the headline as it appeared yesterday in BBC News:

Internet Explorer story was bogus

A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax. A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.

If you visit the Aptiquant website, you'll see this article: Tell-Tale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in less than 5 minutes! probably written by the author of the site. The list contains 8 points:

1. The domain was registered on July 14th 2011.
2. The test that was mentioned in the report, “Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test” is a copyrighted test and cannot be administered online.
3. The phone number listed on the report and the press release is the same listed on the press releases/whois of my other websites. A google search reveals this.
4. The address listed on the report does not exist.
5. I copy/pasted most of the material from “Central Test” and got lazy to even change the pictures.
6. The website is made in WordPress. Come on now!
7. I am sure, my haphazardly put together report had more than one grammatical mistakes.
8. There is a link to our website AtCheap.com in the footer.

These boil down to fact-checking information found on the site:

• A whois search of the domain name to find the owner, date (#1), telephone (#3), address (#4);
• A search for Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (#2) to see if it's available online;
• A string query to see if the material was copied from somewhere else online (#5);
• A close reading of the report to uncover spelling and grammatical mistakes (#7);

The other two (#6 and #8) aren't real obvious red flags. Lots of sites have ads and who cares much what software was used to create the site. I doubt if many searchers would have figured out #2 or attempted a string query to check on plagiarism (#5).

The quickest investigative method is definitely fact checking the domain. This yields the most information for further investigation, including the alleged author's name, which I haven't located yet on the AptiQuant site. A search for the author's name returns suspicious information that isn't conclusive but does make you wonder why someone like this would be involved in a study like that. I guess it's not surprising that questioning the author's credibility doesn't appear in the list of 8 above.

I didn't visit the site until after the hoax broke, and Google's cache doesn't go back before that, so I can't tell if information was removed from the site. For instance, information about the team is missing. If that was the case when the fake study first appeared, that too would have been a red flag.

In addition to the what the site author has said about obvious signs of the hoax, do you see others? Share your answers in the comments.

Whale Tale

My colleague Dennis O'Connor is spending a few days in Baja. He reports seeing whales every day.

I thought I'd browse around to see what mischief online I could find related to whales. It didn't take long to find www.icrwhales.net.

This is a fairly curious site which proclaims itself to be a parody. I haven't seen it listed on any of the standard hoax indices. The site, which calls itself the Institute of Delicious Whale Research (IDWR), contains stories and examples that suggest a humorous orientation. That might make a good challenge for older students: identify how the language of the site discloses its purpose.  It's pretty much the same skill set as trying to detect bias.

Perhaps more challenging to find is the AUTHOR and PUBLISHER. Let's see if anyone can come up with that information and post it here, along with a brief description how you found it.  Knowing more about the author(s) may help answer this question: can you detect whether the author is for or against whale hunting?

Another challenge: what site is icrwhales.net parodizing?


You may want to add this example to your list of hoax/parody sites.

Tools for Evaluation

While browsing through library sites today, I came across a link to Human Cloning, The How To Page. The message on the library site (http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/susabeck/checs98.html) offers the cloning page as an example why students should be taught to evaluate.

I wasn't familiar with the Cloning page or its author, Arthur Kerschen.  Not many sites link to Kerschen's pages (so using the link: command is not particularly useful). But good evidence can be found by browsing the site.

The challenge is for you (and your students) to determine whether this is a deliberate hoax or not and back it up find a page that supports your conclusion.

Something I'd like to create is a matrix of hoax sites and the techniques useful for investigating them. This is one example where browsing may be the most effective method.

Too Fantastique to be True?

I love this one.

Over the last month or so, about a dozen people have sent me a link to an apparent engineering marvel located at the University of Iowa. Some have even talked about traveling there to see it.  Here's an excerpt from the video:



The claim is that the musical instrument is built mainly from John Deere machine parts and took over 13,000 hours to build, tune and perfect. The email, however, which most people simply forward, contains great clues for investigative searching:

Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory
Sharon Wick School of Engineering
Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall
University of Iowa

Fact Check: copy and paste any of the first three into a search query.

I hope my friends engage in a bit of investigative fact checking before they pack the car and head off to the University of Iowa!  They could check Snopes as well.

Your students may find this an interesting challenge.

The video is one of many similar animations first produced, not as a hoax, by Animusic.  Someone made it a believable hoax by making up some "facts" about it and thousands of people since have made it seem more credible by forwarding it to their friends. Did you help out in that regard?