This morning, when I opened my Facebook account, I found this message shared by some of my friends. The picture was really horrible and had the following message below it. "DO NOT LIKE IT. COMMENT. AND PLEASE SHARE IT OR JUST UPLOAD YOUR OWN...BUT SOMEHOW SPREAD IT IF YOU'RE EVEN 1% HUMANITY — ITS STILL NOT OVER YET... CHRISTIANS BURNT ALIVE BY JIHADS IN NIGERIA.."
There were a lot of heated discussions beneath and I was just curious to know when and how the incident took place. So I started browsing a little to know more information about it. In a short while, I came to know that the information spread along the shocking image is a complete HOAX. The image seem to be real but has no association with the Christian-Muslim problems in Nigeria. It is a tragic result of a tanker explosion that happened in Congo, another African nation.The real incident is here.
This is just one example of such hoax messages that keep spreading and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter make it even more easier to spread these information like wild fire.
One other such HOAX I came across recently is about the contact lenses melting in the eye of a guy who attended a barbecue party who finally lost his eye sight forever. Such information creates immediate attention and we think that it will help some of our friends and try to spread the information immediately. But, what we don't think is whether the piece of information we are trying to spread has any truth behind it. My intention is not to blame anyone who spreads these information as they do it out of good heart (or whatever possible reason it can be). But, what I want to convey here is that we should try to spend couple more minutes to see whether the information is from an authentic source and carries the right information.
Most HOAX messages come with one of the following ideas:
(1) Scientific details/medical science related issues that we are not completely aware of.
(2) Religious issues.
(3) Technology related issues.
Most of them try to create sympathy or use our unawareness and thus makes us spread the information. But, as an educated lot, it is better if we spread the right information and avoid passing these HOAX messages. If we are not sure about the message, it is better not to pass it on rather than passing a false information.
