Fact Checking? UK Paper Simply Takes The Word Of Guy Who Claims WiFi Allergy

from the proof-please? dept

For years, we've been hearing stories from various people insisting that WiFi makes them ill. The only problem? There is absolutely no evidence to support this at all. Double blind tests with people have shown that the people who claim that WiFi makes them ill are no better at figuring out whether or not there's WiFi in a room. A more recent, and rather thorough, test showed that while those who claim "electromagnetic sensitivity" are having cognitive and neurobiological reactions, it's got absolutely nothing to do with electromagnetic waves. That is, the presence (or absence) of electromagnetic generating objects made no difference on the person.

And yet... reporters just seem to love the story about people being allergic to WiFi. The latest is in the Daily Mail over in the UK, which has an entire article all about a guy who lives in "agony" because of all the WiFi around. Not once does the reporter look into the evidence of the "allergy" but does claim that 2% of the population suffer from this. The guy travels around with a WiFi detector to protect him... but it's not protecting him from whatever is causing his problems (as the study found). You would think that a reporter would actually check the facts on such things, right?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: electromagnetic sensitivity, wifi, wifi allergy


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    scote, 27 Jul 2009 @ 9:29am

    "The guy travels around with a WiFi detector to protect him"

    Which is to say he travels around with his enabling device that tells him when to feel sick...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Jaws4theRevenge, 27 Jul 2009 @ 9:30am

    Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    Putting any journalistic qualifications on your C.V. would probably make you less likely to get a job there. It's one step up from toilet paper with interesting facts written on it. Except those facts are both interesting and factual so...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    John Strickland, 27 Jul 2009 @ 9:32am

    Take a Claritin and STFU.

    Just because a portion of the population is allergic to something doesn't make it newsworthy. I am allergic to pollen. It doesn't mean I advocate burning all the flowers down, or putting barriers around every flower and then putting up signs around gardens warning people.

    Radio has been around for close to a century. I am sure that if EM sensitivity were real we would heard bitching about it long before now.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2009 @ 9:40am

    Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    yeah, i was going to point out that this is the daily mail. mike, you know they're a tabloid right? next to the wifi allergy articles, they talk about alien landings, wolf-boy, fish-girl, and nosferatu's predictions which have all diligently written exactly how the current government official will be the anti-christ.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    BullJustin (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 9:42am

    Solution

    Why doesn't this guy just build a Faraday cage for his head and be done with it?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:06am

    Fact Checking?

    Fact Checking is not in the job description of Serious Journalists. That's why they employ Fact Checkers.

    Or did. Before they were all fired. Still, not their department.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    lavi d (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:08am

    Well...

    The reporter's newspaper probably doesn't have the funds necessary to check facts because it's being destroyed by the internet.

    Sheesh, you should know that by now.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Jaws4theRevenge, 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:11am

    Re: Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    Well, no, I wouldn't describe the Daily Mail as being that outlandish. It runs your everyday celebrity trash with occasional features like the man who is chased by seagulls everyday before work. That is a real feature they ran some years ago.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    DanOfSoCal, 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:14am

    Re: Solution

    Man, that would look hilarious!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:44am

    Re: Re: Solution

    Actually Tin Foil would work ....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Simon (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:45am

    Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    As soon as I saw the TechDirt headline, I knew this was going to be a Daily Fail story....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Petréa Mitchell, 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    I'd suggest the National Enquirer as an approximate US equivalent, and this posting as approximately equivalent to being surprised when the Enquirer takes astrology seriously.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    DJ (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:22am

    Re:

    OOO Big shocker there

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:22am

    Re: Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    I wouldnt be surprised of the Daily Mail getting its predictions from a fictional vampire.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    DJ (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Solution

    Ok, Cooter....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. icon
    DJ (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:29am

    Still....

    This is right down the line of everyone who bought one of those cell phone reflectors a few years ago, thinking that they were being protected from harmful radio waves going through their head.....

    All it takes is on "respected Journalist" (please note the quote marks) to read this story on the web somewhere and decide to run it in the Times or some-such "respected" place. Suddently you have people everywhere thinking this BS is true.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    DJ (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:30am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Solution

    Wait, NVM, that was an armadillo. (Flexin' my geek)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    scote, 27 Jul 2009 @ 11:40am

    Re: Still....

    "All it takes is on "respected Journalist" (please note the quote marks) to read this story on the web somewhere and decide to run it in the Times or some-such "respected" place. Suddently you have people everywhere thinking this BS is true."

    I don't think it even takes that much. All it takes is a compelling anecdote. Humans prefer compelling stories to scientific data. But the newspaper's irresponsible, credulous reporting surely makes the situation worse, by spreading the story further and wider.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    fogbugzd, 27 Jul 2009 @ 12:06pm

    Reliable source

    Even if this is in a disreputable publication, it is now eligible to be used as a source for any politician who wants to grab headlines by regulating WiFi.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. icon
    TW Burger (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 2:19pm

    Journalism and Facts

    Oxymorons (a tribute to George Carlin):

    Military Intelligence
    Jumbo shrimp
    Factual Journalism

    Any article in any paper that I have read, where I had personal knowledge of the event and/or the facts, were mostly incorrect and presented in a manner to support a particular view. It is as if the first criteria to becoming a journalist is to not know anything and the second to be highly opinionated.

    Is this person related to the guy who says the mafia has bugged his home/car/mother's house and is trying to force him to be a super model in New York?

    Lithium anyone?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Kazi, 27 Jul 2009 @ 2:44pm

    I bet he uses a microwave or a wireless phone!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. icon
    trollificus (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 3:28pm

    "Journalists every day are faced with the choice of laboriously checking the validity of what they are told or just putting it in the paper. Both approaches pay the same."
    ~More or less accurate Scott Adams quote

    Also, good points above about the incestuous "sourcing" practices of the MSM. Not surprising from media that can't or doesn't bother to differentiate between advocacy group press releases and scientific stuides.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Jason, 27 Jul 2009 @ 4:25pm

    Re: Take a Claritin and STFU.

    Actually the local news stations in my home town all report on pollen count on a daily basis as part of the weather report, but no we don't burn the flowers either.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. icon
    monkyyy (profile), 27 Jul 2009 @ 10:38pm

    well i get sick form being away form tech

    why?

    cause i aint from the pre-internet era
    tell these people to stop liven in the past

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    Nasch, 28 Jul 2009 @ 9:02am

    Re: Re: Seriously, it's the Daily Mail

    next to the wifi allergy articles, they talk about alien landings, wolf-boy, fish-girl, and nosferatu's predictions

    Yeah, that's Nostradamus, not Nosferatu.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2009 @ 1:57am

    FYI; The Daily Mail is not considered to be a quality newspaper in the UK.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  27. identicon
    Larry, 7 Sep 2009 @ 2:51pm

    There's as much evidence for man-made global warming as there is for wifi allergy. But that doesn't stop the media harping on about it, does it.

    The Daily Mail is NOT a tabloid, and it's about the only paper which reports the truth in the UK.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  28. identicon
    Mary, 19 Sep 2009 @ 12:09am

    WiFi Allergy BS or Is It WiFi Radiation Sickness??????

    What is proof? Is proof that WiFi is safe because the FCC (U.S. Federal Communications Commission) says so? What would proof look like to you? This is a gray area of science and 'safe' can look and feel different to everyone, even to the FCC. It was so hard for them to define what safe was they just avoided it all together. They just waived all of the safety testing requirements by invoking the magic 'low power exclusion' clause. What does that mean? You are the guinea pig! Just ask all of those that got radiation sickness at the US Embassy in Moscow what the ’low power exclusion' clause meant to them. The Soviets used Cold War tactics of choronic low intensity modulated microwave bombardment at .01 microwatts/cm2 when they were directing low but steady doses of electromagnetic radiation into the embassy's offices and they were able to take out our US diplomats lives legally! What's the difference between that and WiFi hot spots I wonder? It's all 'safe' right? Let's do a reality test. If the FCC doesn't want to take the time to safety test this stuff, why not after they know what happened at the US Embassy? Maybe you should ask them that question and see what they say.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  29. identicon
    WiFiAllergy, 6 Nov 2009 @ 7:03pm

    take the wi-fi challenge

    I challenge any of you who doubt the existence of electromagnetic sensitivity to try the following:

    Strap a wi-fi device to your head - 150 milliwatts ought to do the trick. Set it up to do constant uploads and downloads, and keep it strapped to your head for 30 days.

    Don't protest to me that signal strength declines in an inverse square. You are telling us it is safe technology - so it must be as safe from an inch away as it is from two feet away. Afterall, if the energy of the 2.5GHz particles can't harm you, then they can't harm you - right?

    If you manage to keep it going for 30 days, congratulations - you are right and I am crazy. If, on the other hand you refuse to take the challenge, or can't handle it for the full 30 days, then i am right and you are full of crap.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  30. identicon
    diala, 21 Jan 2010 @ 11:02pm

    I want a piano lessons for love story

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.