{"id":673,"date":"2014-03-01T13:30:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=673"},"modified":"2014-03-01T13:30:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T21:30:14","slug":"mythspromotehatred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2014\/03\/mythspromotehatred\/","title":{"rendered":"Myths aren’t just annoying – they promote hatred"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have long been passionate about\u00a0debunking urban legends<\/a><\/strong>, and that I’m very\u00a0concerned at how easy online and phone-based tools, from email to Twitter, are making it to promote rumors and myths<\/strong>. Five to 10 years ago, I was blogging on this subject regularly.\u00a0The web host where I published these blogs is long gone, and I’m now trying to find my many blogs on the subject of how folklore, rumors (or rumours) and urban myths Interfere\u00a0with development work, aid\/relief efforts and community health initiatives, so I can republish them here. I’ll be publishing these every Saturday until they are all back online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This blog originally appeared on a different blog host on 13. August 2009.<\/p>\n

myths aren’t just annoying – they promote hatred<\/h3>\n

I worked in Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0for six months in 2007, and I maintain a lot of contacts there. One of them forwards emails to several people, including me, regarding warnings or calls for protests, and all of them have been urban legends — not one has been true. The latest was this:<\/p>\n

In the business area of MID TOWN MAN HATTAN in New York a new BAR is opened in the name of APPLE MECCA which is familiar to KAABA MAKKAH. This bar will be used for supply of Wine and Drinks. The Muslims of New York are pressurizing Government of USA not open this BAR.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Accompanying this myth is a purported photo of the “bar” —\u00a0here’s an example<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ofcourse\u00a0this is all a lie<\/strong>.\u00a0The picture is not real<\/strong>. It is a doctored image of the Apple Computer store on Fifth Avenue in New York City (which, indeed, has a bar — a\u00a0genius<\/em>\u00a0bar — where knowledge, rather than wine and beer, is served).\u00a0It is a clear block, not a black box<\/a>, and is not at all a rendering of the holy Ka’ba.\u00a0But many people forward the message via their phones or computers to all their friends and relatives, and they not only keep the lie alive, they also generate hatred and misunderstanding by Muslims against the West<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the USA, we have a variety of online resources that debunk myths and rumors, such as the\u00a0Straight Dope<\/a>\u00a0column by Cecil Adams,\u00a0truthorfiction.com<\/a>, President Obama’s\u00a0Reality Check<\/a>, and the popular but politically-framed\u00a0snopes.com<\/a>.\u00a0Are there any efforts in Arab-speaking countries and countries with large numbers of Muslims that are actively, engaging in myth-busting<\/strong>? If you know of such, please\u00a0contact me<\/a>. If not — please, someone, get busy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have long been passionate about\u00a0debunking urban legends, and that I’m very\u00a0concerned at how easy online and phone-based tools, from email to Twitter, are making it to promote rumors and myths. Five to 10 years ago, I was blogging on this subject regularly.\u00a0The web host where I published these blogs is long gone, and I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[97,573,720,724,721,722,719,723],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-relationsoutreach","tag-communication","tag-folklore","tag-myth","tag-public-health","tag-rumor","tag-rumours","tag-understanding","tag-urban-legends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-aR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}