Friday August 05, 2005

Toothing Lives?

Blogger Cybersoc points to a new BBC News report and suggests that “toothing” is alive and well in the Middle East, as kids skirt prohibitions on talking openly to one another. So toothing was not a hoax?

No, “toothing” as originally reported by BBC News, among others—the BBC being notable for the fact that its toothing story, filled with quotes from a source that doesn’t exist, is still online, unchanged—remains a hoax. And the fact that young people in the Middle East and India use Bluetooth to flirt is way old news. Is it “toothing”? You can call it anything you want, but it’s not the story that Wired News was obliged to retract or the one (to my knowledge) the BBC has yet to correct.