As a little girl, I used to be intrigued with Greek mythology - stories of in-fighting among in-breeding gods. As an adult, I like to look for myths that hide themselves as given truths in our daily lives.
Given the prevalence of electronic communications today, myths and memes in general (if you want to consider them in the same sentence) can spread at lightning speed. One practice when consuming such information would be to attribute the content to the source when attempting to validate the information. But then again, there are just too many people who forward 'news' for the sake of 'just in case'.
I've also noticed the internationalisation of common myths: stories that I used to get as a student in Australia were recycled with a local flair, and re-regurgitated onto the WWW among local circles.
In Muslim circles, stories most often circulated cover the areas of the halal status (and business dealings) of common household products and big name brands (Delifrance, Starbucks and Marks and Spencers have appeared too many times to count). And of course, the cautionary tales of Dooms Day signs and new doa's - most of which I now forward to others who are more knowledgeable that I am to verify.
On the halal status of food, I now refer to the manufacturer's websites. The more responsible brands are truthful about their ingredients, but it's really up to you on what you want to believe. In the meanwhile, to all you people who are not eating the Tim Tams that Padma brings over from his trips to Melbourne, please forward them to my floor...
In general, these emails (I'd rather call it spam, but since it comes from friends, I say 'emails' with an italicised scowl) take up space and bandwidth which are not exactly cheap in Malaysia. They also take up time to consume and distract the recipient from genuinely urgent information (like jokes - or work...). It has gotten so bad that I've dedicated a folder in my mailbox called "Read Later". If you're one of those culprits who love forwarding me things, rest assured, if you don't think about what you forward, your email ends up there or the trash if I'm in a bad mood. I do read all my emails, just that 'later' may be a lot later that you think...
Read this before you believe what you read and forward to the rest of us:
1. Urban Legends Reference Page
2. Hoaxbusters
Other Links:
1. Not a hoax, more a joke: Microsoft as an anti-virus vendor?
2. Picky Eaters Click Here
3. Be a responsible shopper
Maybe since we all have blogs, we should post these spamemail on our blogs!
It'll save bandwidth and if we don't want to read them, we just won't!
Posted by: Sharizal at 2003年06月18日 09:54Excellent article. Next time I receive such mails from "friends", I'll direct them to this article.
Posted by: drtamil at 2003年06月18日 12:26I agree with you on that. sometimes in the same e-group, I would receive the same email again and again. once when I commented to a colleague about making sure what I fwd was "sahih" she got angry. She said, " kita fwd aje, up to orang tulah nak buat apa, nak check sahih ke tidak." I wonder how she could be so irresponsible. but since she was much older I didn't want to argue, but I just scared her by saying, "hari tu ada orang kena tangkap sebab hantar email pasal klcc nak kena bom. baik2 fwd email nanti org kata kita menabur fitnah.
Posted by: nectar at 2003年06月18日 12:35Forwarding e-mails without checking its veracity and truthfulness is VERY irresponsible, and it DOES help fitnah to spread. I REALLY hate it.
Do note, however, that even if the e-mail provides a website for you to link to for verification, the website itself could be false. My sister was viewing a website of a false bank just last night. She knew it was false because she recognized the logo, which they copied from an actual bank with a different name altogether.
Posted by: HANI at 2003年06月18日 12:40I used to use this as my signature line in my e-mails. Works well enough. Most of my egroups are relatively spam free from such forwarded messages.
"O you who believe, if a sinner comes to you with news, VERIFY IT, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done." [Al-Hujuraat, 49:6]
If it doesn't work, I'll attach the truth of the matter at hand. Been doing so much looking up that I've got a pile of replies/materials necessary in my mailbox. Nowadays I'm known as the "wet blanket" for doing that ;-)
The ultimate is of course the list of 10 things about e-mail that was published in the Star In-Tech 2/1/03;
1)E-mail is real
Treat e-mail as you would any correspondence. Be polite and professional.
2)Laws still apply
Just because there are no cyberlaws that apply, don't think you're safe to publish defamatory statements in your e-mail. Once that e-mail leaves your PC, it’s been published and can be subject to real world laws.
3) The rules of language still apply
Honest just because it’s an e-mail doesn’t mean that the rules of spelling and grammar have been suspended for your
convenience.
4) Corporate e-mail is not private
Many companies have an e-mail policy - those which don't should really consider formulating one. If you're using your corporate e-mail account be aware that it may be the company's right to track that e-mail. Your right to use that e-mail program may be subject to your company's policy, so don't treat it as your own private medium. lt is not. It goes the other
way too - even if you're posting from your personal account you can get a friend in touble by forwarding lewd jokes or porn to his corporate e-mail account.
5 & 6, check out the paper
7) We’ve heard it before
Speaking about jokes, chances are we’ve heard them before. If you're a new e-mail user, please don't forward everything you discover on the Internet - they're probably older than you.
8) Substantiate the info
Most e-mail rumours can be easily discounted. A new virus? Go to any antivirus website and look up their alerts. These are full-time professionals who work round the clock to detect and neutralise new viruses. A good place to start would be CERT (http://www.cert.org)
Substantiate the information and double-check your source before sending out that e-mail
9) E-mail can be harmful
Rumours spread by e-mail can be harmful no matter what the online libertarians say. Freedom of expression is not freedom to defame or cause ill-will. If you mass-forward potentially damaging e-mail without doublechecking the information, you've become part of the problem. Just as ignorance of the law is no excuse, neither is lack of ill-intent…damage will be done
10) Think then think again
E-mail can be very helpful and who knows? Sometimes it may be real information coming through. But really, think, and then think again, before you click on the "send" button.