It’s Often Difficult to Distinguish Fact from Fiction on the Internet

Harut Sassounian

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

It is ironic that in this modern age of technology and abundance of information at the fingertips of everyone with an electronic device, it is becoming increasingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish fact from fiction.

The Internet, with its vast resources on every conceivable subject, can be a blessing or a curse when one is trying to discern the authenticity of a particular article.

There is no way of knowing if what is being read is true or false, unless the reader is an expert in that specific topic or checks websites like truthorfiction.com or snopes.com to distinguish rumors from reality.

Here are two recent examples of such misinformation that were circulated on the Internet to millions of Armenians and others.

The first is an article supposedly from The Moscow Times, titled: “Russian President to Turkish Ambassador: ”˜Tell your dictator President he can go to hell along with his ISIS terrorists; I will make Syria a Big Stalingrad for him!”