Forward this to everyone you know!

Please don't. Really. At least not until you understand why.

Approach the internet with skepticism. It's full of misinformation, and a lot of it is showing up in your email inbox.

Every few days, it seems, my wife or I receive a forwarded plea warning us about the latest conspiracy, health threat or computer virus, or telling us we can get money by forwarding the email to all our friends. That last part is key: "forward this to everyone you know!" is almost always present. They've come to be known as "Urban Legends". And they're almost always wrong.

At the risk of sounding like a great email I saw a few years ago: Bill Gates is not tracking your email, and he will not pay you to forward his. The Gap is not handing out coupons based on how many people you forward your email to. Tampon manufacturers arenot adding asbestos to promote bleeding (and more tampon use). Envelopes are not being sent out with viruses that release when you open them [Check here for info on recent anthrax scares which sound similar.]

You get the idea. It goes on and on.

And they all insist that for your health or for your wealth or for the protection of others, you must forward the email to everyone you know, as soon as you can.

Don't. PLEASE don't. At least, don't until you're sure it's legit. And if it asks you to "forward this to everyone you know", or "tell all your friends and loved ones", chances are it is not legitimate.

How do you tell if it's legit? You'll note that each of the examples above are, in fact, links to pages which describe in sometimes excruciating detail the hoax, its origins, variations and most important of all...whether or not it is true. There are great sites:

• http://www.snopes.com, my favorite all-around
• http://www.urbanlegends.com another good general reference
• http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html for tracking down virus warnings
• http://www.cdc.gov/hoax_rumors.htm for medical hoaxes.

These will quickly and easily allow you to search and determine whether that important plea is just another hoax. If you're on the usenet, alt.folklore.urban is a newsgroup dedicated to discussions of the latest urban legends and hoaxes. http://urbanlegends.about.com/ is another resource. I also recently stumbled onto the alt.folklore.urban FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) lists hundreds of urban legends.

Why care? There are many reasons. Certainly forwarding email that is, in fact, wrong, is kind of like putting garbage in the inboxes of all your friends and family; at best, you're wasting their time, and at worst you're causing unnecessary anxiety. (Check out the end of the discussion of the so-called "Klingerman Virus" at http://www.snopes.com/toxins/klinger.htm for one extreme case of email-hoax-induced anxiety.) Realize also that many people still pay by the minute to connect and download email; these hoaxes, very much like SPAM, are eating up time and bandwidth and costing them money.

Why should I take the time to find out if it's true...isn't it safer to just forward? Since there's a very high probability you'd be wasting their time & perhaps raising their blood pressure, I think not. It's really very simple...check it out before you forward. If you don't check it out, don't forward, and no harm done. If there's a legitimate issue, chances are you'll see it in the legitimate press...we've seen that recently with very real computer viruses and terrorist anthrax threats making front-page news. Email is not how news organizations, corporations and government spread legitimate news and important information.

So...should you forward this to all your friends and family? You won't make any money by doing it. Your computer won't crash (at least not as a result of this), your luck won't change and no one will live or die as a result. However you might educate a few people and reduce, by a small amount, the misinformation on the internet.

But it's up to you.

Leo A. Notenboom
  last update: August 4, 2003

(And here's a link to a little Urban Legend Humor as well. Enjoy.)

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