ON THE WEB: THE PROBLEM OF FAKE QUOTES
by Hazed
If you have recently received an email from Alan you may have spotted a quote at the end of it that says:
“The thing about quotes you find on the Internet is that you can never be certain of their validity...” – Abraham Lincoln
A problem that the US Republican Party suffered from last week, when their social media feeds honoured Abe’s 208th birthday using an inspiring quote:
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts, it’s the life in your years.”
The trouble is, just as Lincoln never commented about the Internet, he didn’t say that either.
The BBC news website recently published an article examining the phenomenon of fake quotes on the internet. They cover bogus political quotes from both sides of the political spectrum, and discuss how you can check if a quote really was said by the person.
