Friday 18 November 2011

Let's stop "crying wolf"

We've all seen the posts haven't we? Massed capital letters - usually copied and pasted complete with spelling mistakes. Something like this one:

ATTENTION!!!!! IF ANY OF YOU GET A PADLOCK ON TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER OF FB HOME PAGE SAYING YOUR SECURITY IS LOW.. IGNORE.. DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.. IT IS SO HACKERS CAN ACCESS YOUR ACCOUNT COPY & PASTE PLEASE!


Or the ones that are appealing to your softer side:

BIKER DOWN!! MAY I ASK MY FACE BOOK FRIENDS, WHEREVER YOU MAY BE, TO KINDLY COPY, PASTE & SHARE THIS STATUS FOR 1 HOUR TO SUPPORT OUR FRIEND GEORGE WHO WAS IN A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT, LET HIM KNOW THAT PRAYERS ARE SENT HIS WAY. Do it for all of us, unfortunately no one is immune. I hope to see this on the wall of all my friends! JUST FOR MORAL SUPPORT!!! I KNOW SOME WILL...THANK YOU!!!


I'm making a plea for people to check out the validity of these "warnings" and " appeals" before they post them on their social media pages.

There are a number of excellent sites where you can find out if you're crying wolf if you post the information:



Apart from reducing the sheer number of false alerts, it should reassure you that most are just idiots trying to see how far they can get their hoax to go.

93% of people won't bother to check before they post - will you be one of the ones that does?