What to do when you get a WARNING via the email
When
you get an email that warns you about something - is it true ? Or if it
claims something about making money or fighting evil -- what do you do?
Please treat all such emails as rumors and research them before you press the Forward button. This
applies to any virus warnings, warnings about pretty much anything, and
anything that says you can make money without doing work. If
it has been forwarded more than once, it is most likely an urban legend
(not true), a hoax (not true) or some combination of half-truth and
outright lie (not true). So, where do you go to do research? Start with this list of the 25 Hottest Urban Legends on snopes.com: http://snopes.com/info/top25uls.aspIf it aint on that list, go to these sites and look up the topic or any of the names in the email. Start with Snopes:Snopes. Use the search box there to look up the topic of the email or one of the names mentioned in it.
If that does not show the email as a hoax, then try You can also get results by looking at wikipedia.org or factcheck.org, although you may want to use those as secondary sources for further research after trying the others above first.Why do I care?
Because emails that serve no purpose except to spread fear and lies,
stir people up without offering them any action they can take, or
otherwise make the people forwarding the email look stupid -- these emails are slowing down the internet and distracting us from dealing with the real problems we face. A
wise man once said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" -- I would
add " and those who use fear to divide and control us." Please help stop the fear and spread truth by researching before you forward.If you are too busy to do research, please just delete any email you receive that has been forwarded more than once.
Thank you. This page is part of Tim's Link Site. Click here to return to the main page.
Created Thursday 15 October 2009; last updated same day.