Beware the hoax e-mail

I regularly receive e-mails circulating a warning – usually about some health or safety situation – and urging me to pass on the message to all my friends. From experience, I know that virtually all of these e-mails are hoaxes, although the sender does not realise this and is acting with the best of intentions.
How do I know that they are hoaxes? The content – often improbable – and the style – usually overly dramatic – frequently make this obvious to someone with a questioning mind.
But I often check them out on Snopers.com or Google by simply cutting and pasting into the search box the title of the e-mail or a key bit of text. I do this because I’m fascinating by how the e-mail originated and what basis, if any, the advice or warning has. It tells us a lot about human nature and the role of the Net.
I was reminded of these hoax e-mails today by this article which makes the interesting point that many of these e-mails are targeted at women. Why is this? Because women are vulnerable, they are caring, and (sadly) they are often gullible.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

2 Comments

  • Eric Lee
    June 11th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

    First of all, men can be caring and vulnerable and yes, even gullible. Sometimes, even more so than women. (Remember that the majority of American women voted for Kerry; it was the men who put Bush into the White House — so who’s more gullible?)
    The vast majority of the hoax emails I see are not particularly directed at women. They are directed at human greed — and fear.
    The (female) author of the Guardian article is describing emails she received, sent on to her by her friends who happen to be female.
    But as a male, I receive many forwarded emails from friends (male and female) which are not specifically aimed at women.
    One of the most popular hoax emails claims that the British government has put an end to teaching about the Holocaust in schools due to Muslim pressure. Not a grain of truth in it. But it still gets passed around from friend to friend, and I still from time to time receive copies of it.

  • Mavis Smith
    June 12th, 2008 at 9:25 am

    I bin anything which ends with – send or pass this on.
    Check others out once I got the hang of it.
    But they are a nuisance.