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If thousands of people are lambasting an innocent man for being a duck fucker, and one brave stranger stands up in his defense, that stranger can prepare themselves for a deluge of "Takes one to know one, pervert!" and a shit-ton of cloaca pictures. If you want a less ridiculous example, look at how the defenders of women targeted by Gamergate nonsense got their own fair share of threats and obscenities. Defending the Internet's latest target is a good way to become a target yourself, and usually it's just not worth the pain and hassle.

On the professional level, a site that runs a calm and collected analysis of the facts three days after a story breaks is going to get an infinitesimal fraction of the views that the sites who immediately ran the fake, sensationalized version received. The latter might eventually run a retraction, but they're not going to go out of the way to advertise their own ineptitude. The sites that want to check the facts, like Snopes, are the exact kind of sites that don't get a lot of clout in the culture that creates these bandwagons in the first place. That's why Cracked's B.S. News series will run until The Man shuts us down -- if there's a decision between "the satisfaction of being right" and "the ad revenue that will allow us to eat that comes with being wrong," that isn't going to keep a lot of people up at night.

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"I knew there would be risks, but I never thought I'd be so turned off of duck confit."

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We all have a bullshit meter that goes off when we sense that a story's too good to be true. And I think the only solution to this problem is to fine-tune our outrage meters. It's definitely a lesson I had to learn -- if a story gets your blood boiling and makes you want to rage against the injustices of the world (as represented by whatever schmuck is standing in for the injustices this week) take a deep breath before you hit "share" or fire off your witty zinger. It's not satisfying to stay your trigger finger, but if enough of us do it the Internet will be a nicer place. You can even still get that feeling of superiority by quietly feeling better than the people who fell for the latest fake story. Everyone wins!

You can read more from Mark, or look at totally platonic pictures of ducks, at his website. He'd also like to thank C. Coville for suggesting an entry.

For more from Mark on Cracked, check out 5 Behaviors Video Games Reward and Reality Calls Crazy and 4 Reasons Self-Pity is One of the Most Dangerous Emotions.

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