Or if you need proof in black and white here is the webpage's disclaimer:
World News Daily Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.It should also be pointed out that the images used for this story are also fake. The supposed discovery is a collection of wooden tablets discovered at Vindolanda in 1973. I'm grateful to snopes for this information. (By the way, if you ever get a chance to visit Vindolanda, I highly recommend it. It was my favorite day trip when I lived in Durham.) As for the image of Ignazio Perrucci, this is a fake too. I'm willing to be informed otherwise, but my best guess is that Perrucci himself is a fiction. It seems that there is an art historian by this name, but the person pictured by the fake story is Ken Klukowski. Klukowski's image was lifted from this page, in all likelihood. If I'm wrong about this, I'd like to apologize to Dr. Perrucci, his mother, and the Roman Catholic Church. But at this point, I'm only offering a fake apology.
-anthony
Anthony, what does all this say about the process of formation of social memory? Then and now? If today we have more effective means to disseminate a hoax than 2,000 years ago, it's also the case that we have means at our fingertips to debunk hoaxes.
ReplyDeleteI've encountered World News Daily Report before; otherwise, I'm pretty sure I'd have been taken in by this particular hoax. It has all of the elements: the document hidden by or buried in the Vatican, it's a healing but it's non-canonical, etc. I've been trying to think about the "criteria" for determining what stories become part of social memory, and I guess (following you and Chris) that it's pretty much a matter of what reinforces group identity.
I've had a few conversations recently about Reza Aslan's "Zealot" with friends who are not religious, and I've come to the conclusion that his book is popular in some part because it reinforces a kind of social identity. Not sure how, not sure what the identity is ...
Short answer: if you want a hoax to enter public memory with any longevity it requires sexy aliens and/or large beasts that enjoy hide and seek.
Delete-anthony
I guess that helps explain the Book of Revelation.
DeleteIndeed, it is clear that all what publish http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/ are fake. I performed a investigation about one of their previous claim (the fact that jesus was black publsihed in 2015) and it also appeared that pictures and scientists listed are all fake.
ReplyDeleteI checked out the disclaimer of World News Daily Report and found it did claim to be a satire and fake news site and then I checked the image of the fictitious Ignazio Perrucci who is indeed Ken Klukowski. I like to check the facts for myself and found that everything you reported thus far is true. Thank you
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