Snopes.com
Don’t forward that e-mail! I don’t care if the warning says that unless your friends do or don’t do something specific that something bad will happen. Your cell phone number is not about to be released to telemarketers. Forwarding a poem will not raise money to help a child with cancer. The conspiracy about the oil or food company is not true, and boycotting or preferring a specific brand will not hurt or help anything.
Before you take any action based on something you see on the Internet, check Snopes.com. They update regularly, and they research these kinds of claims.
Snopes is not a “debunking” site. Some of the items listed are labeled as true. Some things are even labeled partially true, when a true story was somehow modified before making it into your mailbox.
Do yourself, your friends, and Internet traffic a favor. Have a legitimate reason to believe something before you make yourself part of a propaganda machine. Otherwise, you could contribute to harm, you’re definitely contributing to misinformation, and you could be promoting the agenda of someone seeking to use you for their own schemes.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I would add, check with Snopes even if the e-mail says “I checked with Snopes and this is true!” My mother-in-law sends me lots of these. I send most of them back with “no, it’s not true” and a link to the relevant Snopes.com article.