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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Friends Don't Let Friends Forward Fake Crap

I have these friends, I'm sure you all out there do too, that forward anything they get.

Some forwards tell me if I forward it to ten friends, my wildest dreams come true, but if I don't, I'll die a horrible death, drawn and quartered by squirrels. I've learned to spot these emails from a mile away, and I delete them without even reading them. And guess what? Still alive!

Others are jokes, and that's ok, they clutter up my inbox a bit, but I put them all in a folder of their own to read when I am bored.

Even other ones are the religious ones. Where my biggest prayer will be answered if I forward, and if I don't, God will smite me where I stand. I don't forward those either. I'm pretty secure in my faith, and it has nothing to do with emails. Don't be offended if you are one who forwards me this stuff, just know most of it gets deleted.

The final one, and this is the one I really wanted to talk about, is the hoaxes. Good grief, all the hoaxes. It still surprises me how many seemingly intelligent people just blindly go "OMG!" and forward these to everyone they know. Even the hubby had something forwarded to him by a co-worker, who had forwarded it to everyone in their unit. Two seconds on Snopes showed it was fake. For those of you out there that have been living under a rock, here is the link: http://www.snopes.com Bookmark it now.

I believe that if everyone who gets any emails regarding viruses, dying children, or rapists in the backseat of their car, would just take the two seconds to look it up on Snopes, the amount of hoaxes being forwarded would drastically diminish.

I got one today, forwarded to me by a friend, who had blindly forwarded it to everyone in their mailbox. "But," they might argue to me, "it says so right in the email that Snopes has confirmed it!" And lo and behold, there is a link to a Snopes article in the bottom of the email.

I did what my friend did not though, I actually CLICKED the link. (after hovering over it to make sure it did indeed link to Snopes.) And you know what? It was a fake link, that Snopes then redirects to the correct article, found here: Click Here!

So, if my friend had just taken the two seconds to do it, it would have stopped the hoax from spreading a little. And would have saved me the time of having to check it out myself.

In the spirit of Smoky the Bear, only YOU can prevent the spreading of fake emails.

3 comments:

Lacey said...

I am so with you! You never have to worry about me being *that* friend...LOL!

Now if only I knew what to do with my mother...

Anonymous said...

I'm with you girl. I've actually sent stuff back to people with the link to Snopes showing it's a fake. The response I got? "well, I'd rather have people be aware even if it's not true". Although, that particular person doesn't send me anything anymore ;-)

cmh said...

Oh, geez. That is my MIL, too. About once every six months we get the one warning us to add our cell phone numbers to the do not call list "or else." DUMB DUMB DUMB emails.

Thank you for the PSA