Did you know that if you forward a certain special email to enough people, Bill Gates will send you to Disneyland? Did you know that a very sick little boy in England wants to collect your business card? Did you know that a certain store is unpatriotic and we should all boycott it? Did you know that if we all refuse to buy gas on a certain day that prices will come down? Did you know that all of these stories are completely false, yet they are retold via email every day?
Messages of every type circle the Internet regularly. Stories of courage, of hope, of just revenge, and of people in trouble needing your help. Many times these messages are harmless works of fiction. Others can be harmful scams spreading false rumors about innocent companies and organizations. It's important to be able to tell the truth from the baloney. But how?
How can you learn if a story is real or fake?
When you receive a notice of a story that seems questionable, even if it comes from a trusted friend and no matter how much you want to believe it, a little Internet research can keep you safe from false stories and scams. A quick search online can keep you from passing on these lies.
The best place to start is a website called Snopes.com. At Snopes.com, you can search for different stories and learn of their validity. Snopes gives you a summary of the story being circulated, the origin of the story, and info on whether the story is true or false.
What do you do when you get a message with false information?
- First, and most important, when you get an email with false information in its story –
Don’t Pass It On! The only way to stop emails from getting passed around is to
stop passing them around yourself.
- Second, let the person who sent you the story know that the email they sent has
bad information and tell them about Snopes.com too. Everyone should know about
this site to protect themselves from false email stories.
