The dark time is upon us once again. Tomorrow marks April Fool’s Day. (In fact, in some parts of the world it’s April 1 already.) Remember to be careful believing and sharing what you read for the next few days until the joke posts age off the pages. If it seems too good (or too terrible) to be true, it probably is. (That said, Google’s AFD prank this year is as funny as usual. Google has a great knack for coming up with hilarious “pranks” there’s no way you’ll think are true.)

And do try to catch some of that sense of skepticism in a jar, like fireflies, and hold it as a shield the year round against those stupid hoax shares you see pop up on Facebook, satire news sites that aren’t clearly labeled as satire, or otherwise reputable sites that themselves get fooled. Poe’s Law is very, very true.

3 COMMENTS

  1. “Google has a great knack for coming up with hilarious “pranks” there’s no way you’ll think are true.”

    Not necessarily. Remember the year that Google launched the toilet ISP? I know people who fell for it when I forwarded a link on a mailing list.

  2. I’d forgotten today was April 1. and I just made a fool of myself by passing along a link to all my fellow Harry Potter fans that JKR was setting another series at Hogwarts. The link was from a trustworthy news source for geeks (Tor.com) and most of the article was true so I fell for the one piece of news in it that wasn’t true.

    Be careful out there.

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