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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
Enabling Misinformation?
Moderators: imbri, ndemeter
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TheIllustratedMan
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Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Posts: 203

 		Enabling Misinformation?
So, in the Puppetmaster Help Forum, there was a post made about using an ARG to spread awareness about a new research facility a university would like to build. While I have some doubts as to how much good an ARG would be used (see my post here), it did get me thinking about how such a thing would run. The obvious starting point for me is to send out a campus-wide (or possibly just science department wide) email leading them to the trailhead. The side effect of this would be that quite a few people might think that the situation presented is real.
That thought led me to this: are we at the beginning stages of propagating misinformation in the media?
Let's say that Disney wants to do an ARG for their new Pirates of the Caribbean movie (I don't know that there is one, just saying). Disney owns (or is merged with) ABC, one of the major media sources in the US. What's stopping them from planting a news article in any ABC controlled outlet? For instance:
Quote:

Wreck Discovered Off Florida Coast
September 12, 2008
Associated Press
Yesterday, Gerard Terwilliger, a noted treasure-hunter, discovered the remains of a large vessel off the coast of Florida, near Miami. The ship is believed to date back to the 1600's, the famed time of privateering and piracy in the Caribbean Sea.
"We don't know if this is a pirate ship," Terwilliger said in a prepared statement, "but we are fairly certain that it was wrecked sometime in the 1600's, and preliminary investigations have turned up a few coins, consistent with what one might expect from a pirate vessel."
The ship itself, Terwilliger said, is entirely black, with some scraps of what may have been black sails. "The coloration could be caused by time, seawater, and various sea life, but early indications are that it probably was intentionally built this way."
A string of letters and numbers was visible on the keel: "d3d3LnBpcmF0ZXNsaXZlLmNvbQ0K"
Researchers are still attempting to determine what this may mean.

Now, in today's environment, such a thing would hopefully never happen, but if ARGs become lucrative, who knows? We would probably look at that and go "OOH! Trailhead!" but your average reader? How long before it was revealed that the story wasn't real? What would that do to news media's credibility? Would (could) this ever actually happen?
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:57 am
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Euchre
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Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 3342

 		Instead of asking 'could' or 'would' this ever happen, ask yourself 'should' or 'did' this ever happen. No, I don't mean some wacko 9/11 conspiracy sort of thnig, no Illuminati paranoia - but uh... Bigfoot anyone? Well wait, we sort of knew that was fake before it was exposed. However, there's that Montauk Monster bit...
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:03 pm
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TheIllustratedMan
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Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Posts: 203

 		Yeah, I definitely wasn't thinking some big government conspiracy, just more along the lines of storyline being confused with actual news. Of course, legends have been around forever, but these days we are better equipped to sort through the crap (for the most part). The question is, what if formerly (mostly) reliable news sources begin reporting total fiction as fact, and are we supporting it?
Honestly, not so much a serious question as an interesting discussion topic (in my opinion).
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:08 pm
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redct
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Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 1233
TheIllustratedMan wrote:
The question is, what if formerly (mostly) reliable news sources begin reporting total fiction as fact, and are we supporting it?


I think Fox News already does that, all the time.
Cool
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:40 pm
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catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

 		Way back in 2002, the TV show "Push, NV" had an online extended reality (maybe not quite an ARG). Their city newspaper had links to real companies, such as Sprint, Toyota, and TrueRide (who specializes in installing skate parks). The way I remember it, each of those companies published some sort of press release or hosted a webpage on their corporate site which made it look as if there was a real town called Push located in Nevada, and that they each had a presence there. I cannot find any archived evidence of what the press releases looked like, nor can I find any proof that they were released thru a public newswire service. At the very least, I did find my old post from the time, mentioning how the press release was later removed but did indeed exist at the time, side by side with other real press releases.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:30 pm
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TheIllustratedMan
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Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Posts: 203

 		Thanks Catherwood! That's exactly what I'm talking about. Does anyone see that become more normal? How far can it go? Is it a bad thing?

If you want to step back a bit, you really have just as much proof that a character in an ARG exists as you do that I exist. Without getting too philosophical here, what if a different sort of reality emerged through media, where an entire "real life" (not like the show) was superimposed over what we currently think of as real, and no one knew the difference? And no, I don't mean "The Matrix".

Hell, look at wikipedia (of course if you want to get really cynical, that's potentially a large group of people feeding you crap as versus a small group publishing a textbook and potentially feeding you crap).

...

I'm trying not to sound like a conspiracy nut, I would like to have a logical discussion about this. Core question: Is it permissible?
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:00 am
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