Truth, strike two

[ciphergoth]

Thanks for some interesting and surprising responses to the JFK question. At the risk of creating more heat than light, let me try another example, one that I think might be a little less comfortable to be neutral about.

It seems that many people believe that on the morning of September 11, 2001, four thousand or more Israelis who were working at the World Trade Center did not show up for work.

Are those people wrong?

(Update: amended as per ajva's caveat)

Comments

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

The debate to me seemed more about "what do you do with something plainly untrue, and which causes harm by people believing it?"

Upthread, I had a discussion with someone who had to deal with her boss sending out a forward saying tampons had asbestos, and everyone should write to the companies to tell them to stop. Snopes debunks this, but goes farther than just pointing out that it's untrue and causing undue fear, but moreover distracting from some of the real (though relatively rare) dangers of tampons.

Would you be happier discussing the tampon thing?

Or perhaps something on a higher and more immediate level of harm: alternative cures for malignant melanoma?