There's a buzz out in cyberspace, a chattering on the wires excited by screeds of libidinous rumour and dirt being dished. The word is out: if you want to know who did what to whom and with what implement - it's time to log on.
There is, fortunately, no need to tell the Queen Mother that tittle-tattle, lies and scuttlebutt are currently engulfing the web. Only last week, the nation's favourite grandmother was forced to deny rumours of her demise when a Daily Mail report that the Prince of Wales had cancelled a holiday due to concern over the 101-year-old's health reached the alt.gossip.celebrities newsgroup and spiralled out of control.
Fuelled by the still circulating tales of http://thisisleeds.co.uk's accidental August publication of a pre-emptive obituary for the centenarian blueblood, the story rocketed around the world's inboxes gathering pace and credence.
By the time the whisper reached barrister Nick Cartmel, our learned friend felt confident enough to announce the news in Newcastle Crown Court - provoking much grief - and Buckingham Palace was fielding concerned calls by the barrowload.
"The Palace was deluged with calls and we had no time to search the internet for the original source of this misinformation, but people certainly seemed convinced by it," said a royal spokesperson.
"Although the Queen Mother received the news with her accustomed good humour, it is certainly a strange example of how the new media can spin a story out of nothing."
Examples abound of the internet's accelerating capability to serve as an ultra-efficient lie machine writing fallacies onto history's hard drive. In June 1997, writer Mary Schmich filled her regular slot on www.chicagotribune.com with a wealth of Polonius-like advice for graduates that began "wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it." Within hours her words had been appropriated by persons unknown and forwarded as an email claiming to be the work of Kurt Vonnegut. As the text's popularity grew, the change of ownership stuck.
Today, the novelist continues to receive requests to reprint the masterwork. Schmich gets emails variously claiming that she does not exist, is an elaborate hoax or, indeed, is merely a character in Vonnegut's latest book.
Online innuendo and falsehood are not solely the work of clumsy email amateurs, however. Although professional rumour monger Matt Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story, his rapid-fire, no-time-to-substantiate style has resulted in more than a few whoppers gracing his site and made him a high-profile target for fellow gossips. Few internet experiences can beat the war that raged between Drudge and MSNBC.com columnist Jeannette Walls last year, wherein accusations ranging from unprofessional conduct to egg fetishes fairly turned cyberspace blue.
Residing a step closer to the edge is Luke Ford, an online columnist who has made it his mission in life to report the foul workings of the pornography industry. Ford is frequently derided, sued and even physically attacked for work that includes an expose of an Aids outbreak among the skin trade's major stars and a lurid tale linking a leading TV industry figure to the death of a 19-year-old woman.
"[That] story is one of the few examples where the true potential of online gossip has been explored," says Mark Kramer, a former National Enquirer reporter. "That started as a few lines in the newsgroups and ultimately made it into the pages of thepress. However, most internet scoops are just a string of unverifiable rumours thrown against a wall to see which ones stick."
Amongst the ranks of the unverifiable are He Blew His Mind Out in a Car, one man's effort to prove that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966, and Mansue.com, which claims to be the only investigative news magazine exposing the existence of the alien race controlling what we humans refer to as reality.
Although such internet-only "reporters" abound, the vast majority of online falsehoods are perpetrated by innocent dupes who forward messages from newsgroups' spam.
From fictitious accounts of missing children to health warnings insisting that shampoo gives you cancer, check the veracity of your inbox-bound gossip at sites such as hoaxbusters.ciac.org or www.snopes.com.
Within hours of the attacks upon the World Trade Centre, a surge of online activity began generating a welter of lies, misinformation and half-informed rot. Already doing the rounds are stories that CNN's footage of Palestinians celebrating in the streets was archive material, and several versions of a falsified prediction from Nostradamus. It's always worth checking 'information' against urban legends.about.com before making it the basis for a new conspiracy theory - it could spare you a great deal of embarrassment.
