Keep in mind that the Internet is the new "printed word."  That bogus minnie ball story started out as a spoof item in a Civil War newspaper.  It was then reprinted in other papers whose editors did not realize it was a spoof ... and on from there.

Now, it's on the Internet ... but that is really no more than additional dissemination of the original printed material, unfortunately most of the time without the entire history of the item.

The thing about the Internet is that it allows these things to have a much faster and broader dissemination than was available back in the days when only  hard copy publications were available.  And, you know us humans .... we read something (whether in real or virtual print) and we tend to think it's true.

Could be worse, could be raining.