Social Media Hoaxes and Misinformation

Although I have not come across that particular message, I totally agree that there is a lot of misinformation being circulated on the media and social sites do much so that it has now become difficult to believe anything easily. It just takes a few words to either glorify or completely ruin the reputation of anyone or anything. We as a society are becoming very shallow !

Yeah I have come across this at least 5-6 times. Such messages keep making a round every few months or years. Similar to that are messages asking people not to buy fruits from road side vendors, especially pineapple as the vendor is supposed to be inflicted with AIDS and he uses his blood to cut the fruits as a gesture of some kind of revenge on the society. Truth is AIDS virus cannot survive outside the human body even for a minute. But people believe it and keep sending messages, goes to show how gullible people really are.

I would recommend you all  to check out site named snopes.com it is a website that deals with hoaxes and such fake forwards and gives out truth behind such myths.  Another effective way to deal with such hoaxes is TO NOT forward such messages at all, if more and more people stopped doing it, they would die an early death.

Fake mesages are being effectively used by many political parties and others to create confusion or other divisive acts. Gullible persons fall for these posts. In fact there is no need for grass root workers they are now replaced by fake posts in a highly economical manner. Some of our forum members are an example.

I too have received such messages in plenty. Another message which I ve received many times is one which is supposed to be from the CEO of the WhatsApp in which one is asked to forward it to certain number of people in which case we can use WhatsApp services freely otherwise it will cost money. Another one mentions if we forward to 25 people than certain amount of money will be credited in our account. Seriously its so irritating to see such fake messages but in general people do jot stop to think whether it really is genuine or not and start forwarding left and right. Such thoughtless acts only spreads confusions around. 

Another one is the post which traces Nehru's ancestry to Afghanistan and full of malice. It is regularly in circulation and is forwarded by persons who are knowing it is false. But it serves a purpose.

There is no smoke without fire ..

usha manohar wrote:

There is no smoke without fire ..

That's a bit unfair. These were your words. 

" It just takes a few words to either glorify or completely ruin the reputation of anyone or anything. We as a society are becoming very shallow ! "

Abhishek Sharma wrote:

usha manohar wrote:

There is no smoke without fire ..

That's a bit unfair. These were your words. 

" It just takes a few words to either glorify or completely ruin the reputation of anyone or anything. We as a society are becoming very shallow ! "

Lol I forgot the smiley ..

I was teasing Vijay and anyway how does it matter even if someone had a Muslim background ?

It is the agenda of deliberately denigrating a person with the purpose of  influencing voters which is  dangerous  and shows a lack of respect towards fellow citizens. Now that you have been rightly caught by an alert member  you are trying to disown your own bias. There are many fires  without  smoke.

I don't expect anything else from you ...I guess you have forgotten this but if you were to go back a couple of years , we discussed the same thing where you spoke about Nehru being maligned by the press and I had given the same answer saying why shd anyone care what others say, it is his personal life and that is my view  ..you have one agenda of finding fault with me ..go on, I care two hoots !

Social media is good for gossip, entertainment.and socializing only. This is not a place to get genuine and authentic information.    

I agree. I am of the opinion, these gossips may lead to suspicions and doubts. Very recently, a person killed his wife because, some one said that his wife had illegal contacts with his neighbor.

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

Social media is good for gossip, entertainment.and socializing only. This is not a place to get genuine and authentic information.    

No doubt social media are mostly for entertaining and socialising purposes, but It can also be used for sharing genuine information. Take for instance our boddunan forum, even though I have not visited many of the places discussed here but I have a good knowledge about the people and culture of these places based on the the genuine information shared by the members. Why would members lie about their culture or cuisine or society??

jabeen wrote:

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

Social media is good for gossip, entertainment.and socializing only. This is not a place to get genuine and authentic information.    

No doubt social media are mostly for entertaining and socialising purposes, but It can also be used for sharing genuine information. Take for instance our boddunan forum, even though I have not visited many of the places discussed here but I have a good knowledge about the people and culture of these places based on the the genuine information shared by the members. Why would members lie about their culture or cuisine or society??

I agree, there was a time when people were vary of sharing any personal information . If one strikes a balance and reveal only relevant information there is no harm . Sharing information about places and lifestyle helps us learn about each other ..