…but it’s up to you sift through all the Information and deduce It for yourselves. Much has been said about sites that purport to illuminate, debunk and set straight the record, but once the subject elicits passionate and partisan bias, everyone whose sensibilities are offended will quickly denounce the discrediting site as being slanted, inaccurate, and the-enemy-of-everything-they-hold-dear.

The internet has been the medium for the discriminating and prejudiced as well as the objective and unslanted. Depending on the topic, mood, and season, there is always a healthy smattering of news and information that denounces and criticizes what is perceived to be biased and subjective. One has to wonder with the millions of bits/bytes of information published on the Net nowadays if there is any source that is truly impartial any more.

My concern is for the Snopes and Factchecks of this world. I am an avid digester of digital urban legends and hoaxes, and nearly a decade ago, I had very few resources to rely upon to validate the soon-to-be-mail-server-busting multitudes of chain emails, scams, malware alerts and vicious rumors endlessly recycled by mailboxes throughout the world. My go-to back then was the CIAC Hoaxbusters site (long since retired), Snopes and the About pages concerning urban legends and hoaxes. Over time the volume of “misinformation” grew and inspired more sites to open shop, sometimes specializing in types of urban legends and spam. TruthorFiction, FactCheck, and the archives at Symantec and Trend Micro are just a small sampling of sites that I added to my roster of hoaxbusters.

Call me a skeptic but I just don’t like being duped. I also like data.  Other interesting sites that I’ve visited on occasion: The Skeptic’s Dictionary, Mythbusters, The Straight Dope, Adherents.com.