Check your facts
By BunGirl
@BunGirl (2638)
United States
February 16, 2007 10:42am CST
Ok, I get a ton of forwarded "warnings" and "alerts" in my inbox every day. I see the here on myLot too. 99% of them are completely wrong. The other 1% are usually only partially true, or no longer true. How do I know for sure? Well, I check. Everytime. You see, well meaning folks, reposting things they found on the net, can do more harm than good sometimes. So, before you post something, check it! A great site for things like this is snopes.com. They keep track of all the junk that gets passed around and they verify the validity of it. They also have an easily searchable index, so it's pretty simple to find what you're looking for.
1 person likes this
10 responses
@microzeta (245)
• United States
16 Feb 07
Indeed, it is astonishing how many people are so easily beguiled by these false warnings. I get them as well, and I actually die a little inside each time I find out one of my friends (whom I mostly hold in high esteem) have fallen for one of them.
1 person likes this
@microzeta (245)
• United States
16 Feb 07
haha of course I wasn't wholly serious, but some of the things I've received over the past few years... oh, if you could have read them... if only...
1 person likes this
@lucy02 (5015)
• United States
8 Mar 07
Yes, I get a lot of these in my email and emails saying that a restaurant will give you a free dinner or something if you forward the email. Then I check the restaurants website and they have a warning about the email scam. I also get emails all of the time asking me to boycott a certain business for some reason. I just ignore those.
@sherinek (3320)
• United States
13 Mar 07
You are absolutely right. I never check the facts and I think its better to check if i ever want to implement something. Anyway, I logged on to snopes and I think its a cool site. When I have time, I will spend some on that. Thanks.
@brokentia (10389)
• United States
16 Feb 07
I have often used the Urban Legend website. :)
My sister used to be big on forwarding me alert emails that I just knew could not be true. So, I would search it and then email her back that what she believed to be true in email, was in fact...not.
She used to get really upset or I interrupted it that way because she would give short responses back acknowledging that she received my email.
So, I stopped sending her emails notifying her that they emails were urban legends. LOL But I still check it out if it sounds fishy to me. :)
1 person likes this
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
16 Feb 07
LOL -- My Mom sends me a lot of them. She can never seem to remember where to go to check and she's not too terribly internet savvy, so when she gets one, she sends it to me first to check it for her! Sorry to hear that your sister wasn't happy about you checking for her. I would think she'd be grateful!
@fcrifcri (122)
• Italy
14 Mar 07
Really it doesn't happen to me but that's probably because I am not a big poster on MyLot. I never received any alert and I don't understand whay do you receive so many. I'll check the site tha you suggest.... oh yes now I understand what do you mean!
@palpalsky (899)
• United States
13 Mar 07
thanks alot for telling me this ..indeed i will check this
1 person likes this
@starr4all (2863)
•
16 Feb 07
I love that site! Now, my friends and family know if they send me something I will look it up and let them know if it's true or not. I get tired of these chain letters, warnings, and such that are fake.
1 person likes this
@Withoutwings (6992)
• United States
8 Mar 07
That really annoys me too. I always check things out on snopes.com before I forward anything or post anything. My mom was really bad about sending around paranoid misinformation. I've finally got her trained to check snopes too.
1 person likes this
@crickethear (1417)
• United States
17 Feb 07
thanks for the link. Nice to be able to check out all these warnings.
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