Debunking Disinformation The Zero's regular users are already familiar with our contempt for "Internet truth." When it comes to child protective issues, rumors, distortions, and spin surrounding celebrities can be especially pernicious, in either direction. Our commitment to disseminating rumor-shredding fact led to our compiling the original Victor Salva Media Reports Page, which presents fully-sourced material only. Editorializing or "interpretation" has been deliberately excluded. The response from users (many of whom had not previously known that Salva, hired by Disney to direct the movie Powder, had a prior conviction for child molestation) was overwhelming. When the news broke, the rumor mills produced a ton of "product," some of it deliberate disinformation, but the facts remained available here, and served to debunk many carefully-planted myths about Salva and his career. When Salva's next movie, Jeepers Creepers, led to a flurry of ill-informed (or ill-intended) newsgroup and message board postings—many of which revealed a distinct lack of familiarity with the facts—we prepared an updated page reflecting the current situation, which received thousands of visitors in its first week alone. As Jeepers Creepers 2 is now being filmed, with Salva again on board as director, the information regarding Salva's history is as relevant as ever. Rumors, innuendo, misinformation, and disinformation about movie director Roman Polanski's 1977 arrest, trial, guilty plea, and pre-sentencing flight to avoid incarceration for unlawful intercourse with a minor abound: that Polanski was falsely accused, that he was never convicted, that the victim was an older teen with whom he had a "love affair," that Polanski remains "in exile" to protest archaic age-of-consent laws, etc. The Zero is contacted often with requests for the real story, especially after Polanski's name comes up during interviews with Mr. Vachss. In keeping with our tradition of providing factual, sourced information to our users, we prepared the Roman Polanski Media Reports Page, so that you may judge for yourselves. |
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