First rant thread for me, I'm excited.
I have seen this countless times, and I'm sure you people have as well. Someone will post something, or start a thread about something that turns out
to be horribly misleading, if not an outright LIE.
Then, other people will use this false information to further their own theories or ideas. I find it a bit depressing that false information gets
passed on so easily here on ATS. Considering the site's motto is "deny ignorance" I'd expect members to be on a crusade to find truth, not to
perpetuate incorrect facts.
Here is a perfect example I saw today.
THIS thread was posted today, saying the
following:
China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills
This was actually the second thread on this same thing,
HERE is the first thread on
the issue.
Now I realize that it is ATS policy when posting an article, to copy the article's title word for word. So it's not exactly the OP's fault for the
false information, but I would hope that people would check the facts before posting fake information. What's the danger in this? Well I'll show
you.
THIS thread was posted today, and in the thread the following was said,
with a link to the previous article:
China has dropped most of its US treasury bill holdings: www.abovetopsecret.com...
Did you catch that? Do you see the quick spread of outright false information? Personally I feel it's a pretty big issue that ATS members will spread
things like this without first even checking on the legitimacy of it.
In both threads, there were members who were kind enough to point out the TRUTH. In this case the truth is that China sold off 97% of short term
bonds, and NOT 97% of all their US debt. HUGE difference.
It is not my intent to single out any posters that are brought up, if you take it that way my apologies. I am simply using them as an example of how
someone posts something that is false or misleading, and quickly the bunk information spreads through ATS. If we as a community strive for truth, we
really need to work on this problem. First step, is to check the facts before posting an article, and make sure it's accurate. And if you are just a
reader, and not the poster of the article, the same thing goes, check out the info before passing it on as truth.