Do you remember the time when you were younger (high school perhaps?) when you would receive chain letters from friends or classmates telling you to rewrite the letter and distribute to a certain number of people? Those chain letters are back with a vengeance.
Facebook Chain Letters Spreading like Wildfire
Although you won’t have to photocopy or rewrite the letter yourself, posting those viral messages in your friends’ walls on facebook doesn’t make them less annoying. Sometimes, it even makes you look stupid especially if the chain letter contains wrong information.
What makes facebook chain letters viral? To coerce recipients to redistribute them, facebook chain messages employ scare tactics (you will die in three days if you don’t repost this letter); promise rewards (the last guy who redistributed this message won in the lottery) or play with your emotions (this poor little girl needs you to repost this prayer chain so she wouldn’t die).
While a number of facebook users repost chain messages with good intentions (who doesn’t want to help a dying girl by reposting a message about her condition?) and do something beneficial (call for financial help and raise money for people affected by flashfloods), many of these chain messages actually only spread rumors and false information.
How to Stop Chain Messages in Facebook
Because of the emotional play and scare tactics that chain messages often use, it is difficult to stop these messages from spreading (better to repost than die tomorrow afternoon). Fortunately, you do not have to remain a slave and puppet of foolish and coercive social network chain messages and even chain emails if you know what to do:
1. Know if the chain letter’s message and claims are true. A little google search will help in knowing whether you have to believe and repost a chain message. Knowing the information is bogus will not make you feel guilty NOT to repost the message. (Okay, so a kid who shot himself in the chest with a brad nailer is 22 months in the chain letter you received a moment ago and he WAS 22 month old one year ago in your google search. Maybe the message for help is passe or no longer applies at all).
2. Do something BETTER than reposting a chain message. You received a wall post telling you that you are a good friend but you are a brat if you don’t repost the same message to your friends. Why not send genuine messages to your friends, invite them out or call them instead of reposting the copy pasted message on their wall?
3. Remove and ignore. Who says you will win the lottery if you repost the chain message to walls of your 20 friends if you do not even BUY lottery tickets?
Here are examples of chain messages on facebook:
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS NOTICE TO YOUR CONTACTS!
In the coming days, you should be aware! Do not open any message with an attachment called: Invitation FACEBOOK, regardless of who sent it.
It is a virus that opens an Olympic torch that burns the whole hard …disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone you had in your address book .. If you receive a mail called: Invitation FACEBOOK, though sent by a friend,
DO NOT OPEN IT and DELETE IT IMEDIATELY
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!!! PLEASE RE-POST!! KAYLA SCOTT’S 22 MONTH OLD SON SHOT HIMSELF IN THE CHEST WITH A BRAD NAILER~ IT WENT IN HIS HEART~ HE IS NOW IN CRITICAL CONDITION AND NOT DOING WELL ~ NEITHER IS HIS MOM ~ PLEASE START A PRAYER CHAIN FOR THIS BABY~ PLEASE COPY & REPOST ……AS YOU WOULD WANT SOMEONE TO…DO IT…FOR YOU, thanx guys xxxxx i wanna see this as ur status for at least half hr please xxxx!!!!!! GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS
WARNING!!!! DO NOT ACCEPT FRIEND REQUESTS FROM ~~~ BOBBY ROBERTS ~~~ Profile picture is four colored pictures ~~ A hacker and fake name !!!! the name will DESTROY EVERYTHING!!! PLEASE… COPY THIS TEXT ON YOUR STATUS SO THAT YOUR FRIENDS ARE WARNED************* PASS THIS ALONG A.S.A.P
ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK USERS;IF SOMEONE WITH THE NAME JASON ALLEN OR AMY ALLEN TRIES TO ADD YOU..DO NOT ACCEPT.IT IS A VIRUS.TELL EVEYBODY BECAUSE IF SOMEONE ON YOUR LIST ADDS THEM YOU WILL GET THE VIRUS TOO.COPY PASTE AND RE-POST THIS.THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY FACEBOOK SNOPES..
14 YEAR OLD BOY WAS SHOT 6 TIMES BY HIS STEPFATHER,THIS BOY WAS PROTECTING HIS LITTLE 2 YEARS OLD SISTER WHO WAS ABOUT TO BE RAPED BY THIS POOR EXCUSE OF A MAN.THE LITTLE GIRL DID NOT GET HURT THANKS TO HER BRAVE OLDER BROTHER.THEIR MOM WAS A WORK WHEN ALL THIS HAPPENED.NOW THIS BRAVE YOUNG MAN IS FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE ,BUT DOCTORS SAY HE WILL NOT SURVIVE UNLESS HE GETS AN OPERATION WHICH IS VERY COSTFUL AND WHICH HIS MOM CANNOT PAY.ALL FACEBOOK COMPANIES HAVE AGREED TO DONATE 45 CENTS FOR EVERY TIME SOMEONE POSTS THIS TO THEIR WALL,SO PLEASE PASTE AND PASS THIS ON SO THAT TOGETHER WE CAN HELP SAVE THIS BOYS LIFE
HEADS UP EVERYONE
ATTENTION !!!ATTENTION !!! ATTENTION !!! ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK USERS**… DO NOT ADD *JASON ALLEN*, ALSO IF SOMEBODY CALLED *AMY ALLEN* ADDS YOU, DON’T ACCEPT… IT IS A VIRUS. TELL EVERYBODY, BECAUSE IF SOMEBODY ON YOUR LIST ADDS THEM, YOU GET THE VIRUS TOO. **COPY AND PASTE AND PLEASE RE POST* THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY FACEBOOK AND SNOPES
If you have friends on facebook who keep posting chain messages in your wall, make sure to make them read this post. Share or like this post on facebook.
Excellent article. Even the supposedly “feel good” Facebook wall chain posts are utterly superficial and manipulative, and it is those plus the “Help support (insert cause)!” ones my friends fall for. I admit, somewhat embarrassed, that I fell for a Facebook viral once too, when still new to FB and groups. The group appealed to a cause, said that to show support, you had to join the group and put a certain picture on your profile. Since then, I’ve wised up to this as well – I’ll put any picture in my profile regardless of what I do or do not support, thanks, and certainly won’t “recruit/invite” all my friends to join any group. And now chain letters are on FB statuses as well as in the form of FB groups and wall posts. It was bad enough when it was just the groups and viral user-collecting apps, but FB is over-run with this stuff.
Another example of chain fb status message
ATTENTION ALL MY FRIENDS.TODAY I NEED YOU. I NEED TO SEE THIS MESSAGE ON YOUR WALLS!!! URGENT!!! MY FRIEND IS ASKING FOR A PRAYER FOR DIEGO MENDEZ (5 YEARS OLD), A TV FELL ON HIS LITTLE HEAD AND HE’S IN THE INTENSIVE CARE. PLEASE POST THIS ON YOUR WALL FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR; I WOULD DO IT FOR YOUR SON.LET’S GO FOR A MIRACLE. Reposted for a friend
Read this, remember this, and then when you think you are doing a "Good Deed" by thinking about reposting such status's, Read this again, and delete the post you received WITHOUT REPOSTING IT YOUR SELF…….PLEASE!
Always being a very gullible person,( LOL!) I have been trying to check out the things I see posted on Facebook before I share them. I go to Snopes.com. How do I know what Snopes says is true? I don't! A quote from Benjamin Franklin comes to mind. "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see".
How do you know if what Snopes says is true? Because the list their sources at the bottom on an entries page of course!