A public service announcement
Despite the good work of sites like Snopes, some people still seem to have trouble identifying urban myths or internet falsehoods. Here are two handy tips on how you can spot one:
Tip 1:
If you receive an email where the subject starts with one of the following:
Fwd: Fwd:
Fwd: FW:
FW: FW:
or similar (or includes any other indication that it has been forwarded to several people before you), then it is either completely or largely fictional. I’m yet to see a case where this is not so.
A free bonus sub-tip here is that if the email makes any claims that some corporation (such as Microsoft) is tracking how many times it is forwarded, and will make some kind of charitable donation for each time someone sends it on, then it is a load of crap.
Tip 2:
If you see someone’s status on Facebook which says something is definitely true, and you must copy and paste their status into yours to let other people know, then it is almost certainly untrue or misleading, especially if it has anything to do with Facebook starting to charge for their service, and especially if it says pasting the text in your status will somehow prevent you being charged.
If you are in any doubt, then a quick visit to http://www.snopes.com should clarify things.
