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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLazyTruth: Something That Will Finally Stop Your Crazy Uncle From Sending You RW email chains...
The Atlantic:No? Then you must not have some distant (or close!) relation who loves to forward, forward, forward, all the live-long day. But for the rest of us, whose inboxes' factual sanctity is under constant assault, there's LazyTruth, a new tool from Matt Stempeck and his team at MIT's Media Lab.
LazyTruth is a plug-in for Chrome that automatically scans email for information that FactCheck.org and Politifact have deemed false. If something doesn't check out, it'll provide a few words of correction and a link to where you can find out more. You can then easily pass that verified information on to the email's sender. Down the road Stempeck plans to add more kinds of rumors to LazyTruth's filter -- urban myths, hoaxes, false security threats, etc. -- but for now the tool is limited to political tall tales.
"Put simply," Stempeck explained over email (all of which checked out), "LazyTruth is a bridge between low quality information (chain emails) and high quality information (the research outlets that debunk chain emails)." By putting the fact-checking right in your inbox with the forwarded junk, LazyTruth reduces the friction (catch-all phrase for time and effort) between you and a politely worded correction.
Not that they'll believe you of course...
navarth
(5,927 posts)going there right now. I don't mind my Uncle's stuff so much, but I have some friends.......oh yeah.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)I may have to utilize this at some point.
Old Codger
(4,205 posts)For Firefox or Thunderbird
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I would consider this plug-in if rather than "automatically scans email for information that FactCheck.org and Politifact have deemed false. If something doesn't check out, it'll provide a few words of correction and a link to where you can find out more", the system would bounce the bogus e-mail back to the sender (and everyone on the CC list) ... It could just provide me a note indicating that it did so.
alittlelark
(18,890 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)because I really don't want to read the bogus e-mail ... and would prefer that it not even reach my mail-box (yeah, I know that the system might bounce something I might want to see, but ...)
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)And including a note saying, "Your intended recipient did not receive this email due to its inaccuracies noted below. Please correct the information before sending again. Thank you."
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... I'd like to be able to identify particular contacts to automatically bounce, and others that would require me to take an action before bouncing.
My crazy cousin in one thing, my boss quite another.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,840 posts)InsultComicDog
(1,209 posts)it would be worth having
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Maeve
(42,282 posts)They can be trained!
cyberpj
(10,794 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,518 posts)That proves to me that they don't want to hear the truth. They only want to hear the kind of garbage that reinforces what they want to believe.
kentauros
(29,414 posts)by deleting the original email addy in the "Reply All" so only the Cc-ed people get your reply. Let them stew and complain to the originator of the email all whilst he/she is oblivious to your tactics
BainsBane
(53,035 posts)But my sister could use this for her in-laws.
GatorLarry
(55 posts)Not that they'll read or consider anything that comes from outside their Faux Noise universe.
I had to actually set-up a special folder for one "friend" who could send all sorts of hate-filled, racist anti-Obama crap . . . but when I sent him one thing he was furious and didn't want to read any more "liberal garbage."
LOL!
treestar
(82,383 posts)MineralMan
(146,317 posts)into my Spam folder. I look at the titles. If it's important, I'll read it, if not, off to the null device with them.
drm604
(16,230 posts)Anyone else (the vast majority of users) can't use this.
kentauros
(29,414 posts)While I have a gmail address, it's not my primary email address. And I'll never use Chrome.
So, where's the Opera plugin for this?
valerief
(53,235 posts)Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)My VERY right wing and very push father used to flood my inbox with an average of about 5 right-wing forwards per day. I dealt with most of them via having messages containing certain words to the delete file.
Get this though: I asked him to take me off his political forward list: And he actually did! That's so unlike him.
If he starts again I'm going to use that add-on.
louis-t
(23,295 posts)Great idea!
drm604
(16,230 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)They're so smart!
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)coeur_de_lion
(3,680 posts)ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)No thanks.
Blue4Texas
(437 posts)Fact check 24/7 to those wasting my time that must still be exposed
LTR
(13,227 posts)Nice little tool there. Might have to migrate even faster from Firefox.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)liberalla
(9,249 posts)I don't like the sound of that. No thank you.
I'd rather be able to submit specific emails for their scan to inspect, but to give them carte blanche to scan all my email is reaching too far.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Reply All. Don't miss the chance to go after your RWNJ's whole contact list.