I get lots of forwards. Many of them are interesting and a few contain interesting information, but most are simply what the cow leaves behind in the pasture.When I get an outrageous forward I always check it with Snopes.com. When I find one that is simply not true, I usually send a polite message back to the person who sent it to me with a link to the Snopes.com post that debunks it.
Last night I received a forward about a "Hotelicopter" which included photos of the alleged flying hotel. A quick check with Snopes yielded this information.
I imagine most people are familiar with Snopes.com, a site I used frequently when I was a working reporter. E-mail forwards may be contributing to a dumbed down America, one that believes anything it receives in the mail.
By the way, I never forward, even when it has one of those "please send this back to me to show me that you like me too" things. Nothing personal meant. I wish all of us would check out these ridiculous forwards and do our part to stop the spread of false information.
1 comment:
Thank you for this entry!
I am so tired of nonsense emails and the hidden or obvious agendas woven into the text.
Love Snopes.com.
I have discovered 'valid' emails that have been altered to completely change the tone, meaning, and purpose of the original writing. I wonder if there will ever be regulation to stop the bs being distributed at warp speed. I find it very disturbing to think of the cumulative time wasted on this garbage. A terrorist attack on our intelligence if you ask me.
Hopefully, with more of us bringing the misinformation to light, responding to false emails, and making snopes.com a handy tool, we can eliminate some of the cyberwaste.
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