The
internet is an amazing invention and means of communication, and for the most
part, has improved our lives in a variety of ways. HOWEVER, when people
post urban legends without checking them out, they may actually be hurting
people.
I
recently saw one with a picture of a breast with metallic-looking holes all
over it. Supposedly the woman got some kind of parasite from not washing
her new bra before wearing it. It was disgusting, and I imagine it
frightened some people.
I’ve
seen quite a few posts recently about missing children. I always check
them out before forwarding. ONLY the ones that are true Amber Alerts are
true. In this case, it will cause a “crying wolf” response, and soon
people may not respond to the real alerts. Children may be injured or
killed because of these irresponsible posts.
Gerber
is giving away $500 savings bonds to each child under the age of 12 as part of
a legal settlement… Intel and AOL will pay your for forwarding this email …a
major fried chicken franchise uses mutant chickens - that is why the word
"chicken" is no longer in their name … 60 Minutes reported that
Proctor and Gamble is a satanic company… Target is owned by Muslims in France…
Diet soda will give you Multiple Sclerosis…
All
of the above – and many more - are stories - being passed around Facebook, via
emails and Twitter. They are ALL false!
Millions
of people pass on stories about saving a dying child, trying to get something
for nothing by forwarding emails, or warning their friends of deadly food or
other hazard. People may think there is no harm – just in case it’s
true.
Passing
on hoaxes and urban legends can slow the internet down; but worse than that,
passing on these stories may be giving ideas to the same “sick” people who
create viruses and spyware. They may then copy the ideas from these
untrue stories and turn them into reality. This has actually already
happened a few times.
In
addition, when legitimate, very serious warnings are posted, their credibility
is lessened because of all the garbage that readers pass on. It becomes
difficult to discern truth from reality.
Many
of the hoax emails and posts offer a “verifying” source to give it more
credibility. They will say that the source is a huge company, like
Microsoft. If a post tells you to forward this to everyone you know it is
almost always a hoax.
Before
forwarding posts and emails of this sort, PLEASE be responsible. Check
the messages out first. It only takes a couple minutes to visit
http://snopes.com, http://www.scambusters.org/legends.html, http://urbanlegends.about.com,
http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp,
or http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.htmlto
verify whether the post is true or a hoax.
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