How much of it do you get? I'm talking about emails that have been circulating the Internet for years promising that Bill Gates will send you thousands of dollars for forwarding an email message, don't open certain attachments because they will wipe out your hard drive and other stuff like that.
I get several of these every week and I'm tired of it. Tired enough to tell you to stop doing it - or at least check the facts before you send.
I got one today that is quite inspiring and credited to comedian George Carlin. His name is all over it and unfortunately he didn't write it. As a matter of fact he calls it "a sappy load of s**t." It turns out that the man who did write it is a disgraced church pastor accused of sexual assault on at least 14 people. How's that for something inspirational?
How do I know this? There is a great web site that is dedicated specifically to righting the misinformation out there on the web. The site is Snopes.com. What do they do? Snopes is the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.
Just because it comes to your email Inbox doesn't make it true. You owe it to yourself to confirm and verify any information before you pass it on to others. Otherwise you are contributing to a society of misinformation, rumor, innuendo and opinion. Notice that the word "fact" wasn't in that last description. There is junk on the Internet. It's up to you to be responsible and ensure that you are not not contributing to the misinformation of the world.
All you need to do is check out your questionable email at Snopes, get the page link (with the correct information) and send it back to the originating sender AND also hit "reply all" just to make sure that everyone who received the original copy also gets a correction. Go to Snopes, enter the page title or some description in the Search bar and look through the mountains of misinformation. You'll find the truth.
Then you get to give people a little tap on the side of the head that says, "Think before you hit that Forward button."
So think.
1 comment:
Kevin, Thank you for the words of wisdom. I find the computer such a great tool for business and personal, but get tired of the "garbage" that gets forwarded. I hope that more people get that "tap on the side of the head", because it wastes valuable time to delete rather than sharing the positive.
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