But it says here . . .
Some online claims hold up, some don’t. Here are some contentions that drew scrutiny on an international website. Michael Fallow reports. how NZ features on famous Snopes fact-checking site
If the internet is to be believed – and, not for the first time, it isn’t – there has been celebrity carnage at exclusive Northland golf course retreat Kauri Cliffs.
Actors falsely reported to have plummeted to their deaths over the years include Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Jeff Goldblum, Orlando Bloom, Robert Duvall and even Robyn Malcolm.
A decade ago the diligent elves at the Snopes fact-checking site were reporting on the problem, already by then a longstanding one, and pointing the bony finger of reproach at a pair of websites that allow users to generate phoney news stories about celebrities falling to their deaths from those cliffs while filming their latest movies.
Mischievous users simply needed to plug the name of a celebrity into the URL.
‘‘Every few months another one of these faux user-generated articles is circulated on the internet to fool the unwary, generating a brief but intense death hoax for the named actor,’’ Snopes sighed.
This is exactly the sort of mischievous mistruth that the Snopes site, a leading fact-check specialist but far from the only one, devotes so much time and energy debunking.
Here is a scamper through Snopes’ scrutiny of some stories featuring our own beloved country.
Early last month, social media posts spread a meme that read: ‘‘Asked why New Zealand does not suffer from the rage of older white men like in other western Anglo countries, PM Jacinda Adern [sic] replied: Because we have never allowed Rupert Murdoch to set up a media outlet here.’’
Nope. Wrong. Her office denied saying any such thing and Snopes, Reuters, Politifact and others have found no record of her having done so but several commentators have noted a similar comment from former Green Party spokesman David Cormack, in a 2020 interview with British newspaper The Guardian.
‘‘A huge reason that our politics is not so extremely polarised and so far out there,’’ he said, ‘‘is because we no longer have Murdoch-owned press in New Zealand and it has never taken a foothold.’’
After the January 14 volcanic eruption off the Tongan coast, a video claiming to show footage of the eruption circulated. In truth, it was a simulation created about 2011 by researchers at Victoria University and the Auckland War Museum to show the impact an eruption could have.
It was realistic enough to have been inappropriately seized upon more than once after real-world events, including the deadly 2019 Whakaari/White Island eruption.
There have been times when Kiwis have been the source of untrustworthy reports.
In 2007, the Snopes.com inbox started receiving queries about reports of a hapless sales and marketing manager who marked his first day at a Californian Porsche dealership with an illstarred ‘‘Buy one, get one free’’ promotion.
Identified as Glen Fergusson, he was reported to have lost his job after 18 Porsches were given away on the promotion’s opening day, to buyers who made extravagant profits onselling the freebies.
‘‘I have never really been too good at math and I was sure the whole time we were making money,’’ he was quoted saying.
‘‘I had seen the buy-one-get-onefree card work extremely well for the new coffee shop down the road and thought what a great idea, I will try it here.’’
Snopes tracked down the tale to tale as a ‘‘bit of fiction cooked up by the now-defunct New Zealand humour site stuffed.co.nz’’.
(To be clear, it was a parody site not to be confused with Stuff itself.)
Then we have had the stories that emerged from stony scrutiny to entirely validated.
So it was when Snopes confirmed that, yes, a New Zealand woman was indeed convicted of attempting to smuggle 947 succulents and cacti strapped to her body in 2019. She had been trying to sneak the particularly valuable local specimens to
China.
Debunking feel-good stories is part of the job, at times, and this includes fake tales of bravery by non-existent dogs. So do we detect a scintilla of relief when last year Snopes confirmed the story of George, the jack russell terrier who gave his life to save five children from two pit bull attacks in Manaia, New Zealand?
He was posthumously given a PDSA bravery award, a former US Marine from Texas had decided to send his owner one of his own three Purple Hearts, and there is now a statue in his honour.
Snopes has assured anyone who cares that, yes kiwis lay ridiculously large eggs which, according to the Audubon Society, are akin to a human giving birth to a fully developed 4-year-old.
And some New Zealand media were among those worldwide fooled by a hoax story that insect repellent companies had hired a Ugandan man whose flatulence was potent enough to kill mosquitoes 6 miles away.