I hate hoax. Those who warn about diseases, dangers, pseudoscience, deadly effects of everyday objects, mysteries and criminals unnerve me. Those of magical friendly messages that fulfill your wishes if you send them to a few friends, seem childish to me. I am charged by those who tell you that the hotmail is going to close or that a very bad computer virus is circulating. But those who I hate deeply are the hoaxes that talk about lost or sick children and it is to these that I will refer to in Babies and more.
Hoax on lost or sick children
All parents are touched by the story of a child in grave danger and we can be tempted to pass the chain, just in case what they tell is true. We cannot avoid, naive, thinking about how horrible it would be if this happened to us and that can make us not stop to think what we do.
But they are a nuisance, an attack on the dignity of these unknown children those who have been robbed of the image and a monstrous mockery against those who, in truth, face the drama of the disappearance or the incurable ailment of a child. I hate hoaxes about lost and sick children.
Not to those who transmit it, but I do believe that it is necessary to explain that we should not be complicit in forwarding these chains and helping to discover them.
Recognize hoaxes about children in danger
I know that we are not always cautious to verify them, but it is, to a large extent, our obligation as Internet users to do so. It is quite simple. Normally, when they arrive, if we type the name of the child and the word hoax, we will find many links where other Internet users notify us of their inquiries, which always reveal the chain as a fraud.
They appeal to our sensitivity, our solidarity. But we can recognize the hoax. The consequences of forwarding them are not non-existent. First, they exhaust the patience of the recipients. They make the possible real messages lose value, if they exist. They congest the servers, fill us with unwanted advertising and other garbage. They waste time on who sends it and who reads it. And they give pleasure to the creator, who does not deserve it, especially if he is so insensitive to having used a child's pain story, even if that child never existed.
Further, there are ways to guess that they are a hoax. Normally they do not carry verifiable data to confirm the news, as a link to a serious media outlet. Nor do they give specific data on where to locate the authorities responsible for the search or medical assistance. And above all, there are loads of other people's address lists and the request, in very large letters, that we send it to all our contacts. Everybody hoax signs.
Disappearances and serious illnesses
They talk about abductions that just happened and carry the parents' desperate message, but normally we won't have seen anything about it in the news.
Others, horrible, "adorn" with children with diseases that have deformed their body or ask for help from blood donors or other families with that rare disease. Sometimes they promise that money will be donated to those affected each time we forward it.
The blood donation is especially bleeding, if you allow me the pun. Hospitals have their resources to make citizens reach a possible need for a certain group. There is a child in a hospital in Valencia, for example, who has been waiting for blood from the AB group for years and years, although of course, sometimes the data changes and different names and problems are used on the same photo.
I am very angry that this is played with the goodwill of Internet users and I think it is necessary to stop complicit in those who they make fun of children's misfortune.
Breaking the chains out of respect for those who really suffer
Everything is usually a big lie. Before forwarding any of these messages you must verify that they are true, if what I have explained leaves any doubt, with an internet search. It is a question of network security, but also of respect for really endangered children and their families. The solidarity is not to resend, but to verify and break the chain.
These messages are sometimes a cruel mockery. Others, a way to get addresses to then bomb with spam. And they can also come with the hidden gift of a computer virus if they ask you to click on a suspicious link.
But above all, the hoax about lost or sick children they seem to me an attack against those really affected by something as terrible as a kidnapping or a fatal diagnosis and against the pain of their families.
Be supportive of those who suffer, break the hoax chains on lost and sick children.
