Chain letters were bad enough in the old days when both stamps and envelopes were licked but the internet has resurrected a lot of myths simply because it costs next to nothing to distribute the crap. Urban myths have evolved into internet outrage and, sadly, even OHS professionals forward on this rubbish.
What is most annoying about this is that safety professionals should know better. Many of them bleat on about the necessity for evidence and then pass on an email about mobile phones and explosions or about a demolition ball hitting a car, that has no foundation.
For all the OHS professionals out there, BEFORE considering forwarding an email about safety risks, do one minute of internet searching to verify the status of the email. All OHS professionals should bookmark or RSS www.snopes.com. Snopes has been a feature on the internet for many years and analyses urban myths and, increasingly, internet hoaxes, rumours and emails. If some mention of your weird email is not already on their site, it will be in a few days.
Many of the emails circulating are fun the first time round but second time round should be automatically deleted, and don’t pass them on, particularly if they are purported to be true and can easily be proven false. This perpetuates the nuisance and shows the gullibility of whoever sent the email.
Hello, thanks for the great blog. I was beginning to think that I was the only mythbuster that used snopes before forwarding a suspect email. In one case, I actually approached a well known manufacturer regarding their packaging and posted the reply to the person who sent the email to me..
Keep up the good work!
btw, if I get one more \”forward this email to get a free laptop\”, I will just scream!!!!!!
Onya! Kevin