Hoaxes Abound, Especially on Facebook

I have to wonder, why are there so many hoaxes on the Internet? I suspect there is a small number of folks that just take delight in fooling people.

They used to come mainly in emails sent by worried friends who want to protect us. They warned us about all of the bad things just waiting to happen to us if we don’t watch out, so ‘forward this to everyone you know’.

They also told us about the really great things that Microsoft or other big companies would give us if we just forward the email to ‘everyone we know’.

And let’s not forget about all of the evil things that will happen to our computers, including total destruction. All of this silliness just kept coming and coming, with supposed references to the news, Snopes or other sources. However, if anyone took the time to investigate,  the hoax would be quickly determined to be just that, a hoax.

Now the hoaxers have a great big wonderful venue to perpetrate their false missives. Facebook can reach so many more folks so much faster!  I discovered that Snopes (Snopes is a site to help dispel hoaxes) now has 344 Facebook hoaxes as of this writing and by the time you read this there will probably be more.  Truth or Fiction is another site to research to ‘get the truth’. Another site is Facecrooks. (I like this one!)

I wish there was a way to convince my gullible friends to think about these things before they perpetrate the hoax. There are almost always clues to indicate it is a hoax. These warnings always seemed to include ‘send this to everyone you know’, or ‘post it to all your friends’.

If you think it’s better to be safe than sorry and go ahead and post or email that hoax, you really need to think again. That’s how these hoaxes spread, by well meaning folks who ‘don’t want to take a chance’ and don’t bother to research.

To check it out, go to Google or your favorite search engine. You will probably find out very quickly if it’s true or not. You can check with Snopes, Truth or Fiction and even the website of that TV station that supposedly reported it.

Just don’t make the hoaxers happy by posing hoaxes!