Unlike the printed word in serious newspapers the Internet is rife with false information that deliberately misleads the public. Elvis is dead is often proven wrong when the King is sighted at Denny's in Fargo. How can a person know what they are reading in the Internet is credible?
Brad Jarvis, noted fact-checker-upper, stated, "Fact-checking is extremely difficult but not impossible." Jarvis runs the busy web site TruthFinder.web, based in rural Maine, that gets over two million hits a month.
Jarvis gave examples of untruths from the Internet: 'It never snows in Mexico, Maine' which was debunked when a local called and said there was two feet of the white stuff yesterday. The Chinese government does not own China, Maine. Schools are not taught in Norwegian in Norway, Maine. And so on.
TruthFinder.web attempts to find the truth about any topic on the Internet. Topics that range from weapons of mass destruction to arthritis is caused by an alien virus. 'Settin' the record straight' is their motto and the staff works around the clock until the truth is found.
