How often do you receive messages from friends or colleagues warning you of a latest health scare, a child that was recently abducted, or an offer from Microsoft to send you $128,443 if you forward your email to 15932 of your closest friends? Most of these messages (not all of them) are fakes that are easily verifiable with a quick Internet search.
I used to get a few of them per week from people I know, but it has dwindled a lot over time. I figure it's either because people don't like me anymore, or because my approach to dealing with such messages has helped them send fewer of them. Of course, I like to think that it's the latter!
If you get a lot of these messages, I invite you to try and educate the people who send them. Reply to the sender and let him/her know that you have found it to be a hoax. It's a simple three step process:
I used to get a few of them per week from people I know, but it has dwindled a lot over time. I figure it's either because people don't like me anymore, or because my approach to dealing with such messages has helped them send fewer of them. Of course, I like to think that it's the latter!
If you get a lot of these messages, I invite you to try and educate the people who send them. Reply to the sender and let him/her know that you have found it to be a hoax. It's a simple three step process:
- Search for the most meaningful terms in the message. For example "microwave causes cancer". If there is specific information in the message, use that as it will give you a more precise result, for example "John Hopkins Hospital microwave cancer." You can also search on known hoax-debunking sites such as snopes.com or hoaxbuster.com.
- Follow the first few links from the search page to find which ones are interesting.
- Send the links to the original sender, with an invitation to send them to the people who received the original message.
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