Are you about to forward an email to your friends or associates? Do you personally know, for a fact, that the information it contains is essentially accurate? Do you actually know where this message originated? Is it one of those emails that was clearly forwarded many times before, or professes great urgency about passing it on? Than, please, do us all a service — and protect your own credibility: verify that it’s true, before you do.
Web sites like these that can help you to quickly search for some keywords (like the subject line) from the message you’re thinking about forwarding:
(I bookmark such sites on Delicious.com, as I find them.)
It usually takes no more than a minute to uncover a hoax (one that you were about to perpetuate). If you can’t be bothered to confirm the information you spread, than it probably isn’t important enough to pass it on in the first place.
