Hoaxes are not only not funny but are down right destructive. Before the internet, it took more planning and work to create a situation where one could successfully fool a crowd of people. Ask any professional magician about how easy it is to set up an effect to fool a large audience and they will tell you it takes hours and large amounts of money.

Unfortunately, the Internet has made setting up fictional situations much easier and faster. There is an insurance company that has a commercial where a guy and girl are talking and the girl starts to say if it’s on the internet, it must be true. When asked where she heard this, she tells the guy it came off the internet. When people get an interesting email, many times they will forward it to all their friends and family members without bothering to check to see if the information is legitimate. Then when a recipient points out to the sender the info was false, the sender is reluctant to send a correction to the original recepients perhaps due to embarressment or the hope others will find out on their own the information was false.

Is the sharing of things from the Internet bad? Not really but neither is blindly passing on any information received. When I get an email I check for superlatives like “always” or “long known” or “secret knowledge” which ring an alarm bell. The next thing is to check on hoax detection websites like www.snopes.com or www.hoaxbusters.org or www.hoax-slayer.com to see if any websites show the email is fictitious. I would avoid using a service like Wikipedia as a check because anyone can create an entry or update the entries.  

Why do folks create hoaxes? I think it’s more for the thrill of knowing one has been successful in fooling a large number of people. Coupled with the ease in which one can create an email with fake data or even a website, makes it even more tempting to fool others. Not too long ago, there was an email in circulation that had a hyperlink to a fake medical website that encouraged women to consume semen to greatly reduce their chances of getting breast cancer. Needless to say if one does a quick search of the internet, there is no medical research to back this up and it’s just another hoax. Who knows how many times this email has been forwarded and the website referenced because it was a medical “fact”.

So do yourself and your friends a favor. Don’t help the hoaxers and screen all emails and information you see on the Internet before forwarding it to others. Let’s break the chain and reduce this childish behavior.