I know. You think it is worth passing along. It stirred something within you. It featured some political leader, celebrity, moving story about someone I've never heard of, some life altering information, or some prediction about the future of our country.It is packed with stories that would rouse me--that would make me want to act or share.
I understand. It touched you and it might do the same for me.
But before you forward that email story along though, please verify it on Snopes. I thought everyone knew about Snopes, so this would seem to be an obvious type of post. But based on the number of silly forwards I still receive, people either do not know about it or just simply do not use it enough. Snopes exists to stifle the urban legends that have gone viral thanks to the world getting smaller via technology.
Maybe it was a shockingly unbelievable story. Maybe it is a quote or action by a lawmaker. I don't care what it is. Verify it on Snopes before you pass it along. Not verifying it is the equivalent to gossiping. Stop it.
Everyone in your contact list will thank you for not passing along rubbish. And if you want to take the extra step, reply to all on the email you received and let them all know that it was verified to be untrue via snopes and include the link.
Using Snopes works for me. See what works for others by heading over to We Are THAT Family.
Photo credit: OmirOnia
Love it. I totally agree. Thanks for posting!
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oh my goodness, I couldn't agree more. I wish this post was required reading before given access to an email account! It takes two seconds to verify on snopes and saves a lot of panic!
ReplyDeleteSometimes an e-mail will say it was verified by Snopes, but then you check for yourself and find it is not true! So no matter what, I always check! 9/10 times--it's a hoax!
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, if people would stop sending me forwarded messages I'd be SO happy.
@Casey--You're welcome!
ReplyDelete@Suzanne--LOL...amazing that otherwise intelligent people won't do this!
@Mom2fur--I agree...I check those too. Strangely, I get tired of sending "hoax via snopes" to the same people! If they aren't going to check for themselves, you'd think they'd at least take me off their mailing list!
Hi Kaye and thanks for stopping at my blog. You are so right about Snopes. I was caught once sending on a hoax, and now always check those things out. It's saved me on some pretty real sounding e-mails.
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