It never ceases to amaze me how people can blindly spread misinformation just because it sounds like a good idea. Because I "play" the Facebook game Mafia Wars, I have over 800 Facebook "Friends" (more than many, not as many as some), and so I probably experience this more than those who use Facebook for it's originally intended social/networking purpose. The one doing the rounds at the moment are the people updating their status with a message encouraging their Friends to send a card to A Recovering Soldier c/o Walter Reed Hospital (a futile gesture. Military installations, of which Walter Reed is one, are under orders not to accept any mail not addressed to identified personnel.)
It takes just a few seconds to verify (or refute) this information, about as long as it does to copy and paste the message into your Facebook status. Of course it also takes more work than a simple Copy & Paste, unless you know how to use Google's "Block/Hightlight & Search Google For..." feature, in which case it does take literally seconds to verify or refute the information you're about to pass on. But how many people actually do that?
Filled with good intentions it appears most people just blindly copy, paste, & forward the misinformation, and other people see it and say "Hey! That's a good idea!" and before you can step in to say, "That's a good idea, but..." it's too late; five other people have copied, pasted, & forwarded the misinformation. And twenty-five people will see the new message and pass it on, and that is how...
"A Lie can travel halfway round the world while the Truth is still putting on its shoes." - Mark Twain
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6 comments:
Why are you specifically tieing this to Facebook? It's a bigger problem with email! I swear my relatives are responsible for forwarding half the internet urban legend crap on the internet.
Just two days ago I had to explain to my Aunt and Mother how the "Water vs. Soda" email they forwarded me was misleading and mostly false. I link them to Snopes. I encourage them to make Snopes' "What's New" page their homepage for both the humor value and education, but it doesn't help. I buy them Myth Busters DVDs for Christmas, nadda. I still have to tell my dad that LA gangs are not doing an initiation drive by having new members shoot the first person they see on the road with one headlight out.
I've even taken to replying to every freak'n email address listed in the two pages of forwarding addresses they don't even know how to delete off the email.
Yeah I'm sick of "chain letters" myself. And its amazing how extreme the views in some of them are... I love the mark Twain quote btw thanks for that one, I'll try to remember it.
Joseph, I'm fully aware the problem exists outside the world of Facebook. The most grievous offenders are often those new to the Internet who feel compelled to pass on every single email they receive, be it a joke, an inspirational message, what have you. If they're urged to pass it on, they do so without hesitation.
A couple of years ago my wife and I just shook our heads sadly when a girlfriend forwarded the email claiming Bill Gates would send you $10,000 (or whatever the insane offer was) for every person you sent the email to. She had no clue about using BC to send emails en masse so everyone could see how many people she'd sent the email to (and she'd sent it to a lot of people), and as I scanned the list of recipients I was shocked to see quite a few commercial/business emails were present.
"Bill Gates is going to send me $10,000 for every person I forward this email to? OMG! I'm going to send it to everyone in my address book!"
And she did. She sent it to literally everyone she knew.
How this woman managed her own consulting business when she was so naive I do not know.
Lies are easier to believe because they require 0 effort. To determine the truth, one actually has to do research, use logic and reason, then formulate an opinion based on empirical evidence; far too much work for many people.
Want to try something fun? Try telling someone they are wrong when you know for a fact what they are saying is correct, you may be surprised how many people change their story based on pressure alone.
Ha, love the quote.
Anytime I'm in doubt, I go to snopes. Of course, the fact that I get most of my information from snopes and Wikipedia could be a problem in itself.
Call it rumour.
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