Enough With the Dummy News!

Okay, I'm really sick of dummy news reports, and I don't just mean the usual food-cop, climate change big brother "Let's ban everything and blame the whole universe and everything that's ever gone wrong in it on the evil human race!" bulltosh.

This time, it's stupid broadcasts and articles that are announced to sound like one thing, and turn out to be another and to top it off, it's a complete useless other to boot.

Take for example the urban legend that says eating turkey could make you sleepy. Turkey, along with several other foods such as beef, milk, chicken, all contain a small amount of tryptophan, all well below any amount where it has any effect on you. Plus, tryptophan doesn't work on a full stomach, you have to take it on empty to become drowsy, and that's if you are taking a strong enough dose to make you drowsy. You would have to eat about ten turkeys or at the very least, ten servings of turkey in one sitting to even get that much tryptophan into your system. Well, obviously that's an impossibility or if you actually tried that, you would end up killing yourself or at the very least, seriously sick and in need of emergency care.
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/turkey.asp

So, that's an urban legend, but it's also a perfect example of a dummy news report.

There was another that claimed beer contained something that was good for the heart or some such idea, but it turned out that whatever it was, it was in such small amounts that you'd have to drink a vat of the stuff in one sitting to get enough of whatever the special heart-helper was claimed to be in it.

Big flipping deal, so what was the point in reporting something so utterly useless and just plain dumb? Obviously if you drank that much beer, your heart would be the least of your problems - and that's if it was still beating.

So this brings me to a recent example of yet another dummy news story that's floating around the web and landing in my inbox via Google alerts.

DON'T GET TOO POKEY ON FACEBOOK! The Facebook poke COULD LAND YOU IN JAIL!

Oh NOES, Really!?!?!?

Well, that's what the online headlines say!

So, checking it out to see if maybe there is a story about somebody who spent all their time annoying their 5000 Facebook "friends" with enough incessant poking to finally get reported, and maybe it resulted in a big row where ugly words were said, maybe a few punches thrown and the poke-addict got tossed in the slammer for an unprecidented amount of obnoxious behavior on the net, right?

Well, that would've been a much better fit for the anti-ppoke scare-mongering headlines so that anyone else could keep it in mind and be sure not to go too crazy poking their friends.

No, the story is nothing like that, not even remotely. It isn't about your average Facebook users getting too carried away with poking.

The real story goes that the poke itself isn't the problem at all, but the misbehavior and violation of a court order by a bullying stalker by the name of Shannon Jackson, is! Shannon has been stalking and bullying some other woman, who put out a court order against her. Shannon disobeyed and poked this woman on Facebook.

Okay, WHAT THE HECK!?

First of all, how did Shannon manage this? Surely they weren't "friends" on Facebook! But they would've had to be for Shannon to be able to poke her. You can't poke people who are not your "friends" on Facebook.

So why on earth wasn't Shannon deleted from this woman's friend list and blocked? That would've been the way to handle a stalker on Facebook!

Shannon Jackson has a history of committing harassment, so it's not even as if the poke is such a big deal just because it is a poke. Shannon could've "followed" this woman on Twitter, and the online reports would be going totally nuts warning about the dire consequences of following people!

No, this wasn't just a poke, it wasn't a normal situation, and whoever Jackson was stalking could have blocked her.

So why proclaim such idiotic things as "Poking could get you jailed!" if that really doesn't apply to regular citizens who are not deranged stalkers?

Oh, probably because no one would be all that interested in a title that told the truth "Woman Jailed After Misusing Social Network to Harass Another Woman" ? Hmm?

You know, that would've still been just as interesting and much truer.

So spare me all the over-the-top bullcrap headlines that scream one thing when the real story says another! You can't get jailed simply for poking someone you're on good terms with, and if you're not on good terms, you shouldn't be friends on Facebook! Clear?

Posted via email from capri