The Hoax?

Sometimes, it’s really difficult to know what to believe.

The internet has been called “The Information Superhighway.” And in today’s technologically-connected world, news travels on that Superhighway and across the globe at breakneck speeds. So called ‘news,’ whether it is true or not. 

The big news this last week was regarding the prank that became a legend. If you don’t follow sports, you may have missed the story of Manti Te’o, the linebacker from Notre Dame. He became a victim of a hoax that involved meeting someone online who never actually existed. Why is this a story?

Because this girl. whom he claimed was his girlfriend, was believed to have died from Leukemia before one of his biggest games of the year. He attributed his excellent performance to her death. The media took it from there and turned it into the love story of the year. Even four months later, as Notre Dame prepared for the National Championship Game against Alabama, the footage was shown of her picture and the last words she spoke to Te’o.

The problem is that none of this ever happened, though Te’o believed that it did. Well, the girl he believed to have died spoke some words to encourage him. But since she never existed, she couldn’t have died. He was at fault for embellished the story from time to time, specifically about how they met and times they had been together, refusing to admit that he had yet to meet her face to face.

But she didn’t exist. The photo was stolen from another Facebook page. The voice he heard on the other end of the phone belonged to someone else. He sent roses to a funeral that didn’t happen.

The love story of the year was just that. A fictional story that the media, who did no fact checking of their own, portrayed to be true.

Lance Armstrong? An eagle grabs a baby from a blanket in a park and carries it skyward for a few moments? A boy rides across the sky being carried by helium balloons? Anything you witness on reality television?

Truth seems harder than ever to come by these days. 

I did a search for recent hoaxes and another big theory on the internet has to do with the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown Connecticut last month. The many unanswered questions about the horrific massacre that happened on December 14, 2012 have ballooned into several hoax theories that ask if this event actually happened at all.

While I don’t personally believe those theories, it did make me wonder if a tragic event of that magnitude could have been staged and presented as truth.

In today’s world, I would have to admit that it could. With the internet, media and technology, it is possible to portray anything as truth

Eric Schmidt once said “The internet is the first thing humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand.”

So how are we to find truth?

Ironically, the first place I go to determine whether or not something is true is the internet at Snopes.com.  Snopes is known as the truth detector of all rumors, the identifier of all hoaxes.

But what if even Snopes is one day proven to be a hoax?

It leaves my head spinning and my heart in a never-ending search for truth.

And I tighten my grip on the only One I know to be true.

Psalm 25:5 “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”

There are those who even dare to call this a hoax.

On this, I have all the proof I need.