A couple of minor stories this week illustrate how the Internet enables unthinking hordes to react en masse to hoaxes or erroneous information.
Case 1: Home stripped bare after fake online ad / Craigslist post told people to come take all they wanted (SF Chronicle). The ad was only up for two hours before it was tagged as a hoax and removed, but this was too late to prevent people from showing up and removing everything from the house, including the front door.
Case 2: Jamba Juice gets hit with intermob outrage after it's reported on BoingBoing that their non-dairy drinks actually contain milk. It turns out that Cory Doctorow just can't read/see (probably too distracted multitasking). He started the whole thing by trying to find out what's in their "Non-dairy 'Dairy'", which is not even an ingredient; it's a heading in their printed ingredient book, referring to their sorbet and soymilk (see photo here). Unfortunately a confused Jamba Juice employee, when called by one of Cory's minions, thought the question was about their "low-fat dairy" and so gave the ingredients for it, which of course includes milk. Jamba Juice later tried to clarify that there is no such thing as "non-dairy dairy" but Cory still doesn't get it, leaving countless internerds to accuse Jamba Juice of a cover-up, conspiracy, etc. This kind of thing happens frequently with BoingBoing and similar blogs.
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