Scams, Hoaxes, Urban Legends and Their Busters - Comments Page 1

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All Comments on: "Scams, Hoaxes, Urban Legends and Their Busters"

Comment Page: 1 |  2 

Posted by:

Harry Higinbotham
03 Apr 2017

"There are none so blind as those who refuse to see." I think that pretty much sums it up. I've sent an untold number of email replies to such nonsense begging people to refer to Snopes.com BEFORE passing along such messages. Fortunately the worst offenders apparently have removed me from their email list of gullibles.

Posted by:

Bob k
03 Apr 2017

I, too, wish people would check things out before blindly forward some of this junk,

However, having said that, I really don't think an ISP or an email server should be doing any filtering on emails.

Example: I receive an email supposedly from a bank wanting information from me, and I determine this is not from them. I try to forward it to them (per their request), and my mail server quietly drops it without even any notice back to me.

Posted by:

Jim Swan
03 Apr 2017

How about if the social media site placed a little feedback checkbox at the foot of each post: "Do you believe this story?" check box YES and check box NO. That might be enlightening, at least to the media site operators!

Posted by:

Peter Greenwood
03 Apr 2017

These "Scams, Hoaxes, Urban Legends" demonstrate the awesome power of belief: a believer will ignore genuine facts and incontrovertible proof in order to sustain their belief, whether it be religous, scientific or whatever. Almost impossible to change their minds once made up - they are totally closed. This is what lies behind so much of our planet's current problems. Sad but true.

Posted by:

MmeMoxie
03 Apr 2017

I rarely get emails from friends these days - Due to Facebook. In many ways I am thankful. I got so tired of trying to inform the senders of their stupidity. Oh, I always was nice and polite when responding to them, but it was so annoying.

The worst of it was the smartest of my friends were the ones falling for all of the Hoaxes or False News. However - Smart does not make one have Common Sense. Common Sense is one of those things that you are born with. Those born with Common Sense will sit back and begin to research what is going on. Basically, something is either too good to be true or it just doesn't sound right or add up.

Now, I get some on Facebook, not like I did when email was the thing, though. I also rarely get on FB. I just do not like what FB is doing these days. I personally think FB is nothing more than BS. However, I do not close my account because of the ease of notifying the family of what is going on.

Posted by:

Monte Crooks
03 Apr 2017

I am so thankful I didn't think my very first "Ask Bob" e-mail was a SpamScam! Now, any e-mail from Bob Rankin gets viewFirst treatment, including this one. It is so true, Bob. I mean, there's still people who believe Leland Stanford actually drove a Golden Spike at Promontory Point on May 8, 1869! Hint: Promontory Point is 37 miles South of Promontory Summit where the Golden Spike Ceremony took place on May 10, 1869, and nobody ever tried to drive a 17.6 karat solid gold spike. The newspaper articles which gave birth to the misinformation was written by reporters Stanford brought with him to Promontory. They wrote their "eyewitness" accounts days before the event when all they had to go on was that Stanford was bringing golden spikes from California and the only map they had showed Promontory Point, but not Promontory Summit. Try clarifying 148-year-old myth-conceptions, much less last week's nonsense!

Posted by:

Stuart Berg
03 Apr 2017

Bob,
I think you will love this video that I send to anyone forwarding me such hoaxes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hD_zluGmQw

Posted by:

Misterfish
03 Apr 2017

Hello Bob
Another interesting read - but Gmail issuing warnings about spam and phishing? Any Gmail user knows (or should do) that Gmail regularly puts good emails from previously unquestioned sources into your spam box, and then deletes it after thirty days. Yet I still receive a dozen or more phishing emails every week which Gmail thinks are OK - most involving "funds" or "payments" of millions of doolars due to me.
The net has thousands of people reporting this filter problem, but Gmail does nothing. You can try editing their spam filter - beats watching paint dry and about as effective - but if you use an email client, like Thunderbird, you have to go into Gmail's website once a month to check your spam box, which rather negates the point of having a spam filter....
This might make a future article?

Posted by:

RandiO
03 Apr 2017

Great topic, as always, Mr. Rankin,
But, since we live in a world where our collective attention span has been trimmed down to 140 characters or a "New York second"; it may have been more appropriate to put your last sentence of your first paragraph, as the first sentence within it.
The electrical circuits' rule of "5 time constants in an RC network" applies equally well to the internet: Anything that is repeated (forwarded, reposted and/or retweeted) at least 5 times has a tendency to become a ‘web-fact’… as with ‘web-facts’; so, with politics, as well.

Posted by:

Kenneth Mitchell
03 Apr 2017

Just FYI regarding Snopes; Barbara & David Mikkelson, who run the site, are far-left politically and you can't really trust any of the political "debunkings" that they do. They've proclaimed as false a lot of genuinely-idiotic statements by Democrats, and true statements made by some Republicans.

Posted by:

Al S
03 Apr 2017

I find it astonishing that on the right side of many websites. MLB, MSN and on Facebook itself, there are headlines You wont believe say good bye to This or that star implying that they have died even has their year of birth and current day of death, clicking on that link takes you to long winded sites to purchase wonder drugs etc.

Even on this page a big headline About Obamas Last Felony. So many people still forward the lies on Facebook that often were discounted 25 years earlier as fact

Posted by:

MikieB
03 Apr 2017

But Bob, I thought that you couldn't lie on the Internet. After all, Al Gore set it up that way.
Okay, this is "Fake News" anyway.
Whatever shall we do!?

Posted by:

Daniel Knorowski
03 Apr 2017

PETLEXA is a primary source of information for a certain newcomer to D.C.(Not Direct Current).

Posted by:

Brian
03 Apr 2017

Sadly, Snopes long ago ceased to be a reliable arbiter of what is true and false. They have a clear political agenda.

Posted by:

Richard Dengrove
03 Apr 2017


Snopes far to the left? I thought Snopes was far to the right.

Posted by:

Rick
03 Apr 2017

Hoax Busters
After 17 years of hoax-busting, the time has come to call it a day. It has been our pleasure to serve you since 1999, and we are honored to have been one of the trusted sources that you chose for hoax debunking. But all good things must come to an end, and Hoax Busters is no different. As of January 1, 2017, we are officially retired. The tenor of hoaxes has changed through the years. These days, it's all about conspiracy theories and political misinformation. Those types of hoaxes are spread by folks whose only interest is in reading news that conforms to their point of view. No matter the actual facts, people will believe what they want to, and truth is irrelevant. Walter Quattrociocchi, the head of the Laboratory of Computational Social Science at IMT Lucca in Italy, has spent several years studying how conspiracy theories and misinformation spread online. He explained that institutional distrust is so high, and cognitive bias so strong, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views — even when it's demonstrably fake. Fortunately, there are several other excellent hoax-debunking websites from which to choose. In no particular order, we recommend: Hoax-Slayer, TruthOrFiction.com, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Washington Post Fact Checker, ThatsFake.com, ThatsNonsense.com, and, of course, Snopes.com. If you're one of those that believe that Snopes is not trustworthy, or has a left-leaning liberal bias, please read THIS. Thank you to all that have visited Hoax Busters through the years. We truly appreciate the confidence that you placed in us. It is important to note that we do not have, and never did have, a Facebook, Twitter, or other social media-type of page, so any Hoax Busters-labeled page is not ours or sanctioned by us. As the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in "The Day is Done," we shall now fold our tents and silently steal away.

Posted by:

Charles A. Parker
03 Apr 2017

Great article. So many people believe everything they read on the internet. I'll be posting a link to this on my facebook page in hopes that they will believe your article.

Posted by:

Kayle Archey
03 Apr 2017

Why don't you post a share link to facebook. Maybe people will listen to you. I sure would have shared this one if there were a link. Thanks for the informative articles.

Posted by:

tristram
03 Apr 2017

Rick (Hoax Busters) wrote:
"If you're one of those that believe that Snopes is not trustworthy, or has a left-leaning liberal bias, please read THIS."

To read "THIS" you have to go to hoaxbusters.org and find the link for "THIS".

Posted by:

Kurt H. Schindler
04 Apr 2017

When people die, the dead person does not care and is not bothered by the aftermath. But other people around him or her have a hard time and share concern. Sort of just like the way it is with a stupid person.

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