(Thanks to http://www.hoax-slayer.com/why-hoaxes.html)
Spreading viral hoax emails is essentially cyber graffiti. Is it a cheap thrill or revenge against society in general?
In some cases, a newly created hoax message might spread a lot further than the author originally intended. Some hoaxes start out as just a practical joke aimed squarely at a select group of friends. But the friends send it to their friends and, in short order, the message has irretrievably escaped into the wilds of Cyberspace. Some time back, a widely distributed hoax message about a group of Cambodian midgets fighting a lion started in exactly this way.
Sometimes the author misinterpreted something and genuinely felt compelled to let others know about it. For example, the infamous "Bonsai Kittens" website appears to have prompted one outraged visitor to create and send out an email petition calling for authorities to close down the site. However, the creator of the email petition apparently did not realize that the site was just a joke. In spite of the fact that nobody is really making Bonsai Kittens, this misguided petition continues to circulate and collect email addresses years after it was first launched.
Some say spammers deliberately create hoax emails as a way of subsequently collecting email addresses. Certainly, messages that get forwarded many times can accumulate a great many email addresses and spammers may well harvest these addresses for use on spam lists. For such an exercise to be successful (from the spammer's point of view), he or she would have to set up a mechanism by which the hoax messages were eventually returned after they had accumulated a large number of email addresses. Typically, email hoaxes do not have any such mechanism. If they did, it would perhaps make it possible to identify the original author.
Hoaxbusters.org says there are 5 tell-tale signs that an email is a hoax:
1. It clearly conveys urgency through capitalization and/or many exclamation points
2. The importance of the message is stressed telling you to share by sending it to as many others as you possibly can
3. It states that it is NOT a hoax. It may even contain a disclaimer such as, 'This came from my neighbor who works for Microsoft so I know it's true'
or even a link to Snopes (which most people will not bother to follow)
4. "Dire Consequences" will result if you do not act
5. Many >>>>> marks appear in the left margin indicating many forwardings
What do you think?
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