Attack Of The Gullible American Email!
by
Jeff Archer Black
Regarding the chain email that contains the following heading:
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PETITION FOR: President Bush
Mr. President: The petition below is a protest against the recent vote of the senate which was to allow illegal aliens access to our social security!
We demand that you and all congressional representatives require citizenship for anyone to be eligible for social services in the United States .
~~~~~~~~~~
See Snopes.com
Are you a gullible American email forwarder?
Let's find out.
You've probably landed on this page for one of two reasons:
1. You received the email described above and are questioning it's validity
2. You are mad about what the email says, have already forwarded it to many people to warn them
of the threat and want to find out what else you can do to stop this abortion of sanity in
the Senate
If you answered #1, good for you. You should always question everything that comes in the form
of a chain email. Especially anything asking for your real name.
But, if you answered #2, you are a gullible American emailer. Shame on you.
"Oh," you may say, "How DARE you insult me like that!?"
Well, I dare. Because I'm really fed up with the junk you forward. Apparently, no one ever taught
you the rules of email forwardings. If you have ever received an email like the above and without
taking a moment to look into the validity of it, sent it on to everyone in your address book,
as is, there's a few things you need to know.
The 3 Simple Rules Of Email Forwarding
1. Always confirm the validity of what you are forwarding. As previously mentioned
Snopes is a great source for verification.
Unless you actually enjoy looking like a complete gullible fool once people start replying to
you saying what you sent them is bogus. If it is a joke, ask yourself, "Is this joke THAT
incredibly hilarious that everyone in my email address book will die without it?" Odds are,
it's not.
2. Learn how to use Blind Send - or Blind Carbon Copy. Abbreviated as BCC. If you MUST forward
something to numerous people,
ALWAYS use blind send. Why? Because when you don't, and you just click on every address in your
book, you are
transmitting all of their email addresses to countless other people. That is not only rude,
it is unsafe. Spammers love getting these emails. Makes it a lot easier for them to add you and
your friends email addresses to their lists. Plus, no one likes to have to scroll through line
after line after line of other peoples email addresses to get to the actual message. To not use
Blind Send when forwarding is the single most inconsiderate thing you can do with an email. It says
you could care less about the privacy of the people you are forwarding it to.
3. Learn how to Cut & Paste. If you absolutely MUST forward every single joke or threat to
society that comes to your inbox to everyone in your email address book, cut the joke out of
all the other stuff in the email, which means the miles of other peoples email addresses and
the line after line of the "You gotta read this!" or "This is great!" stuff. Then, paste just
the joke alone into a new email so it's clean. Then, see Rule #2.
Real simple.
I've heard people say time and time again, "Yeah, Uncle Bob, he is constantly sending me forwarded
jokes and stuff and well, they're just not funny. It's like he forwards every single thing he
gets. It's constant and it's driving me crazy."
Are you an Uncle Bob? If you are, please, cut that shit out. People don't want it. It clogs
up their inbox and after you've gained a reputation as a chronic forwarder, people will begin to
delete everything that comes from your email address. Most folks have trouble saying, "Please,
stop forwarding everything you get to me." And at worst, they simply block your email
altogether.
Don't be an Uncle Bob.
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