When I saw this so-called "study" item in a Sodahead newsletter, I didn't even click the link to read more than the summary that was in the email.
It suggested that a study conducted by some company called aptiquant showed that people who used Microsoft Internet Explorer had a lower IQ than those who used other browsers such as Firefox or Opera.
The first thing I thought was - what idiot came up with this stupid pile of bollox? Why was the news letter wasting bandwidth on an obviously dumb trolling story that tries and fails to look intelligent and legitimate? and who in the world would actually buy into this obviously deliberately insulting bull?
But then again, this was Sodahead, and their newsletters have highlighted some seriously weird and boneheaded questions on a regular basis. It had to be somebody's idea of a particularly childish attempt at generating web traffic and starting up a browser war, similar to the puerile Mac VS. PC war that continues to rage. What web browser company, if any, was behind this sorry idea?
Do we really need more of this babyish computer rivalry?
Yeah, I've used IE, Firefox and safari, and I'm pretty sure my IQ didn't suddenly dip during browsing with IE and shoot up again with firefox. Duh!
I deleted the email and thought nothing more of it until the story turned up again, in a Google alert about hoaxes. This alert contained a link to this Business Insider article, and it was a very interesting read.
To their embarrassment, they had fallen for and reposted the hoax but were not the only ones.
So had the BBC, Forbes, CNET, The Telegraph, CNN, Daily mail, the Register, the Guardian, and many others.
Steve Evans wrote an entry on the Computer Business Review web site, detailing why the story just didn't add up to anything but a huge honking hoax.
The BBC and all other media sites had to print retractions.
Reading through some of these retractions and explanations, I got the answers to my initial questions as to who started this stinker and who would fall for it and why.
It was not a browser war in the way I had initially thought, but frustrated web developer who would really like people to stop using internet Explorer because of the problems it presents for web site development.
The desperation in Tarandeep's confession was understood, but the method of delivery was misguided, and quite frankly, stunk.
The Sodahead email had gone to two of my accounts, so I was still able to retrieve it, and make a comment about the story being a hoax.
Most disgusting of all has been the many kudos this hoaxer got on these sites. The Forbes writer even laughed it off, and many people used this opportunity to laugh at the media for making fools of themselves, while patting the hoaxer on the back.
Certainly the media should've been more careful, and common sense should have told them this was a heap of malarkey trying to look like real research.
nobody's IQ depends on what blasted web browser they use, any more than it depends on what brand of appliances, foods, computers, clothes etc. they buy. The very idea of suggesting that smarter people use opera while less smart, or dumb or stupid, take your pick of descriptors of people use Explorer, is not an objective study and wouldn't even be considered such by any real research company. It is biased, inflammatory, judgemental, and hopelessly flawed by nature.
along with the lies, this hoax site contained real pictures of people who were not even in on it, ripped off their site with the names changed to make up a fictitious company staff list. He followed this up with a second fake report about IE users threatening to sue his nonexistent company for saying they were dumb. Lies on top of lies.
And this gets kudos?
Tarandeep Gill finally admitted to being the culprit, and confesses all here with details on how to make a hoax sound believable. The hoaxer tries to get out of whatever flak might come from this with a crapload of excuses for this pants-on-fire pile of junk, and gives Tell-tale Signs That Should Have Uncovered The Hoax in Less Than five Minutes
Tarandeep Gill's social engineering stunt may have impressed a lot of people, but No kudos from me.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: Ok, now that the hoax is totally uncovered, let me go back and try to sum up everything that happened over the last week.
But first, I would like to stress a few points:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, I'll bet you would…
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: There was no intention to insult anyone. I regret the use of word “dumb” in my press release, but it was kind of important to get media attention.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, right, the old argument about the ends justifying the means, the ends doesn't even excuse the means here. You were so starved for media attention that you created a stupid hoax. Pathetic. It doesn't matter if you used the word 'dumb' or 'less intellectual' your premise was still the same, and it stinks.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: This was not a cheap publicity stunt,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: HAH! Oh, sure, and Vancouver is not in British Columbia, Canada…
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: but an honest effort to create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE versions 6.0 to 8.0.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Honest!? HONEST!? You lied your blasted fingers off with this stupid hoax, and you call *that* 'honest'!?
And how, exactly, does making up a fake survey that tells you you are stupid if you use IE, increase awareness of incompatibilities between its versions?
It doesn't. So don't try that attempted high-minded "creating awareness" thing as an excuse and trying to make you sound like some righteous concerned person. The perpetrators of the latest mutation of the Misty child abuse awareness hoax disguised their effort as "awareness" too.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I have had made futile efforts in this regard earlier too (see www.beastoftheweb.com)
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I checked it out. protest against the version of IE coming out in Sept. 2011. An actual grassroots cause which, I will not be attending, by the way.
While I sympathize with the issue of incompatibility,I suggest all web developers put their efforts into contacting Microsoft itself about the problems with IE for web developing instead of a failed grassroots compaign, and an even bigger failure that is the IE stupid survey story hoax. Get a community of web developers, and work ut the plans with them.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I would be happy if even a 100 people stopped using IE 6.0 after this whole episode
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: 100 people is hardly a nick in the user base. I'm happy to leave browser choice up to the individual. Firefox works better with some sites and applications, IE, with others, and this even varies from computer to computer. Site accessibility is something that really matters - web developers need to stop using visual only captchas that block out users with visual impairments and even dyslexics.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: A little about me: My name is Tarandeep Gill. I am a computer programmer/web developer/entrepreneur. I graduated with a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. I worked briefly before quitting my job to work on my startup www.AtCheap.com, which is a comparison shopping website.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And if that fails, what then?
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I take 100% responsibility for this hoax.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yet you say it wasn't a cheap publicity stunt and you didn't intent to insult anyone. You'd have to be a real moron to think it wouldn't offend somebody.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: About the hoax: While adding some exciting new features to my website, it was getting more and more difficult to support IE version 6.0 to 8.0. Particularly IE 6.0. There is no doubt about IE’s lack of compatibility with web standards (not IE 9.0 though). I am sure every web-developer in the world would agree with me over this, and I am sure every web-developer has at least once in their lifetime felt that how much better the world would be, if there was no IE. I would like to congratulate Micro$oft for making IE 9.0 so compatible, but this whole hoax thing was targeted at IE 6.0 to 8.0
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yet you talk about "Micro$oft". It doesn't matter which version of IE you claimed to target with this hoax, you called people's intelligence in question for using IE, period.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: Anyways, I have been recently reading about Memetics.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: AKA How to start chain letters, and you got the bright idea for this hoax…
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I am a big fan of Dr. Richard Dawkins and theory of evolution of life,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: To each…
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: and it was really amazing to see the same theory being applied to “ideas” or “memes.” According to the theory of Memetics, ‘survival of the fittest’ theory applies to ideas as well. Strong ideas survive, multiply and evolve over time, whereas weak ones die.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh, not always. That's why the Bill Gates hoax chain is still kicking around. Same for all the forward-or-die hoaxes. They're not strong ideas, they're not even good ideas, they are just very persuasive lies crafted by manipulative people, and believed by the emotionally vulnerable.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: So, frustrated with IE (and the fact that you can not have all the 4 versions on one computer to test your website), I went on to create a meme that would result in some awareness and hopefully convince a few IE users to stop using it.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Your cause is irrelevant in the face of your intent and manipulative dishonesty. You are no better than any other hoaxer. You hoped to shame IE users into switching to a different browser by attacking their self-esteem, and you claim you weren't trying to insult anyone. The Amy Bruce hoax waxes all caring about that fictitious dying kid, too, and tries to make you feel bad for not passing it along.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: As Christopher Budd sums it all up in this post, I wanted my “report” to have an authority. So I used some scientific language and style.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: of course you did, like any hoaxer trying to make a bid for credibility. Like the other hoaxes mascarading as news, yours used this terminology and a judgement call to play on people's emotions while getting them to switch off the rational part of their brains. Your pseudo-rationality took care of the latter so people wouldn't bother to listen to that nagging common sense voice telling them "This is codswallop!"
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I am myself a researcher and have done some research in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence, though I have never had a paper published.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Not that it matters now, you have notoriety on the internet.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: However, psychology not being my area of expertise, I did some research on it to make my report look official.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course, that's what a hoaxer does.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: Then I had to create a website to make my report look real.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: But of course you did. Bonsai Kitten and SaveToby.com did as well, and if their hoaxes worked, why not yours?
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The only dreaded mistake I made was copying the content from Central Test’s website and not even bothering to change/delete the pictures of the staff.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yes, that was particularly stupid, but it was not the only drawback. Your whole effort was one big drawback because it was all phoney Baloney.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I changed their names to made-up names though.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yes, adding to the big pack of lies, and ripping off stuff from another site is really tacky and just plain wrong.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The next step was the press release. I hoped to get some coverage, but with all the signs that I have mentioned in this post, I was hoping to be uncovered pretty soon.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh? Probably so you could make a follow up post about your problems with site development and IE problems, which should've been done instead of originating a stupid hoax. Your problems extend to web developers only, not to the casual web surfer. The average surfer who doesn't develop sites from the ground up doesn't know what's all involved, and this stupid hoax of yours is not going to make that any clearer.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: But, I guess what I said was exactly what people wanted to hear. The “meme” spread so fast, it was becoming virtually impossible for me to track all the news sites/blogs that were covering my story.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, and those death-chain comments on Youtube must be what people want to hear as well, they're all over the site.
You just wrote something inane and controversial enough to get the attention of a lot of people, what interests me is just who you initially sent this story to, and how many you astroturfed just on your own before they circulated it.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: So, in the end I just went off to relax for the long weekend, and by the time I was back, people have started to uncover the hoax.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: The sooner the truth comes out, the better. hopefully that means your meme will have a sudden quick death.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: In the end, I would once again like to apologize to IE users who felt insulted, and to Central Test for copying their stuff without permission.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Good, that's a step in the right direction and the least you can do to make up for all the trouble you caused and the bandwidth you caused to get wasted. I hope you are sincere about this apology and that you've learned your lesson and will not start another meme hoax again.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: And I really hope at least a few people stopped using IE 6.0 to 8.0 after this whole episode.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course you do, I understand your desperation, but you went about this all wrong.
There's something else you need to consider, you and Microsoft both. Accessibility. When IE7 first came out, it wouldn't work with some screen-reading programs, so people who needed them, had to wait until the makers of those screen-readers could come up with a fix for that. Microsoft itself hasn't done nearly enough to make their programs user-friendly and accessible.
So, for visually impaired Windows users, they will have to stick with Firefox or IE8 if IE9 doesn't work with their screen-readers.
* * *
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: Tell-Tale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in less than 5 minutes!
The domain was registered on July 14th 2011.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If I had actually bothered to read the whole news story, found your site and checked it out, I would have been very suspicious.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The test that was mentioned in the report, “Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test” is a copyrighted test and cannot be administered online.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: But you were counting on people not realizing that.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The phone number listed on the report and the press release is the same listed on the press releases/whois of my other websites. A google search reveals this.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Like I said, if I had bothered to check that out…
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The address listed on the report does not exist.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course it doesn't.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: I copy/pasted most of the material from “Central Test” and got lazy to even change the pictures.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, sloppy. But at least it helped with your undoing.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: The website is made in WordPress. Come on now! I am sure, my haphazardly put together report had more than one grammatical mistakes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Like your last sentence here.
🙎♂️Tarandeep Gill: There is a link to our website AtCheap.com in the footer.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Like I said, if I'd bothered - but for those who did check it out, how could they have missed that?
And here's my own sign for telling it is a hoax. How about just one - using common sense? If everyone had simply dismissed it as an idiotic prank trying to sound intellectual, this thing would've died on the drawing board.
MSIE is history anyway, many windows users have gone to Chrome or Firefox, and I heard MS wasn't even going to make new releases of MSIE any more or support older versions..
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