It happens to all of us, and last week it happened to me.<\/p>\n

I got punked… by a hoax.<\/p>\n

That study that claimed IE6 users have a lower IQ<\/a>, as much as we may still feel like it’s true, was a fake.<\/p>\n

I’ve been punked by hoaxes in the past, I’m sure, but the difference with this one is that I retweeted<\/a> it and helped spread the misinformation. And, in turn, my tweet was retweeted a half dozen times.<\/p>\n

Now, I didn’t know it was a hoax at the time. I have to admit, though, I immediately bought into it. Old browsers are hated by Web Developers. But when I shared it I was thinking it was “proof” rather than trying to willing lie to people. <\/p>\n

In other words, I don’t think I committed a journalistic sin<\/a> because I didn’t know it was fake at the time. Retweeting a rumor and treating it as fact, that’s a journalism sin… this was more a case of journalistic laziness, because in my heart “I knew it to be true.”<\/p>\n

Typically, I read the links before I share them with others \u2013 not endorsements, per say, but informed sharing. In this case, I didn’t even question it and re-shared. (NOTE: I still believe there is something wrong with you if you are using IE6.)<\/p>\n

Tim Carmody<\/a>, who wrote the piece exposing the hoax for Wired<\/a>, said it perfectly:
\nhttp:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/tcarmody\/status\/98763883157794817<\/p>\n

While I didn’t commit a journalism sin, I did, knowing or not, participate in spreading this hoax. So, what is my responsibility now?<\/p>\n

I went straight to the correction expert and asked Craig Silverman<\/a>, of Regret the Error<\/a>, for advice. His response:
\nhttp:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/CraigSilverman\/status\/98765056753405952<\/p>\n

My response:
\nhttp:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/webjournalist\/status\/98765505191608321<\/p>\n

While not a sin, I still felt dirty. So much so, that I also posted a correction on Google+<\/a> and wrote this piece.<\/p>\n

I’m happy to report, moments after I asked those who retweeted me<\/a> to spread the corrected info, nearly all did.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts? How would you have corrected this “error?” Do you consider it an error?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It happens to all of us, and last week it happened to me. I got punked… by a hoax. That study that claimed IE6 users have a lower IQ, as much as we may still feel like it’s true, was a fake. I’ve been punked by hoaxes in the past, I’m sure, but the difference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,22,24,26],"tags":[41,121,244,250,251,252,101],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}