Misinformation — Ship of Fools http://forums.shipoffools.com/index.php?p=/ Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:12:07 +0000 en Misinformation — Ship of Fools Do Corrections Matter? http://forums.shipoffools.com/index.php?p=/discussion/6547/do-corrections-matter Fri, 15 Aug 2025 16:00:21 +0000 Purgatory Crœsos 6547@/index.php?p=/discussions
Not quite two years ago @stetson posted this:
stetson wrote: »
A few years back, I saw an interview with the Kroffts on YouTube, in which they discussed unsuccessfully suing McDonalds because they thought Mayor McCheese was a rip-off of Puffnstuff. Gotta say, I woulda side with McDonalds on that. Mayor McCheese looks the way he does because he's a hamburger, not because he's a copy of Puffnstuff.

At the time I pointed out that the lawsuit in question was about more than just the Puffnstuff/McCheese similarities and that the Kroffts actually won that suit. I know @stetson saw this because he responded and thanked me.

So here we are nearly two years later and we get this post in a different thread:
stetson wrote: »
I watched an interview with the Kroffts a few years back. They seemed to have pretty different dispositions, and the one guy seemed rather impatient with his brother.

One thing they mentioned was that they had once launched a lawsuit against McDonalds, claiming that Mayor McCheese was a rip-off of Pufnstuf. They lost, and I'm sorry to have to say I side with McDonalds. Mayor McCheese looks the way he does because he's an anthropomorphized hamburger, not because he's a copy of the Kroffts idea of a dragon.

This time it was @ChastMastr who issued the correction, touching on the same points I did, and I wondered if it would have any more effect than my own correction did back in 2023.

This may seem like small potatoes, a poster on small discussion board repeating the same falsehood almost-but-not-quite verbatim after being corrected on it, but it seems like a part of a broader movement towards conspiracism and ignoring facts that are inconvenient, even if it's just inconvenient to something small like a story you like to re-tell on the internet. I'm sure we can all think of various political figures who keep repeating the same falsehoods after being corrected, simply because the facts aren't to their liking. This seems socially corrosive. On the other hand there are some indications that correcting misinformation can actually spread rather than diminish misinformation, so maybe it's simply human.

I wasn't sure where to put this so I picked Purgatory. If the Hosts feel differently, please move this thread.]]>