"I hear that there is this site on the web, where you can buy human meat for consumption. Surely not?"
Well, yes and no. Back in 2001 there was in fact a site called www.manbeef.com (no longer online). Well designed and filled with pictures, illustrations, and recipes the ManBeef site marketed themselves as being "the world’s leading human meat distributor". For a few months in early 2001 the site caused quite a stir. With more than 500,000 hits a day and a lot of media attention, the controversy prompted the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to launch an investigation. However, they found no evidence that any meat had ever been sold, and in June the site creator finally issued a statement that it was in fact - a hoax!
Toby was the fluffy pet rabbit of the anonymous webmaster of savetoby.com, which was going to eat Toby, unless he received $50,000 in donations to help care for it. The media had a field day with this one. The animal rights groups were up in arms. And people send money. The original deadline for receiving the money was June 30, 2005. This was later extended several times. In December 2006 a statement was posted that Bored.com had bought the site, and that Toby was now saved. According to the webmaster $24,000 had been collected in total. Did Toby ever really exist? Would he have been eaten? No one knows.
Drivers license check
A lot of people were upset, when they heard about this site http://www.license.shorturl.com. It allows you to look up any license plate number and get an instant ID of the owner, and the privacy loving American people don't like that sort of thing. Fortunately - it's a hoax!
Haggis is NOT a sheep’s stomach stuffed with meat and oatmeal. It is in fact a reclusive creature indigenous to the Scottish Highlands. That's what the Scottish Newspaper the Scotsman wants us to believe. At Haggis Hunt you can read all about them, and maybe even catch a glimpse of one with one of the Haggis Cams.
This is a rather obvious hoax, but surveys actually show that almost a third of American visitors to Scotland, believe the Haggis to be a real animal.
In 2000 this website emerged: http://www.malepregnancy.com/. It was supposed to be the day-by-day coverage of the first ever male pregnancy. Mr. Lee Mingwei's personal miracle was created with the help of medical facility GenoChoice. Ultrasounds, scientific info and a very convincing website had people guessing for quite a while. It was off course a hoax. Created by Taiwanese artists Virgil Wong and Lee Mingwei to provoke and to inspire debate.
BUT... the hoax has now become reality!! Well... sort of. Mr. Thomas Beatie of Oregon is pregnant. He was born a woman, but he IS a man NOW, and he IS pregnant. The world was at first doubtful, but in April 2008 he went on Oprah and had an ultrasound to prove it.
Today's lesson - Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
