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.
Thank you for this entry!
ReplyDeleteI 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.