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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To get really irritated by people circulating hoax warnings and made up crap

28 replies

UngratefulMoo · 13/08/2015 06:47

Just had another one on Facebook about hackers taking over your account to post offensive things. Ten seconds on Google confirms that this is a hoax that has been circulating since 2011. MIL reposted that ridiculous warning about thieves spraying paper with chloroform and teling you it's perfume, and some other made up rubbish about the number of weekends in August, which also five seconds research tells you is fake.

Why do people mindlessly repost and circulated this bollocks? Area they really so undiscerning that they just believe whatever they are told? It really winds me up up and I have to fight the urge to repy telling them they are muppets.

OP posts:

chicaguapa · 13/08/2015 06:58

YANBU. Just reply with the link to hoaxslayer and say nothing more.

It's the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee ones that wind me up the most. I have zero tolerance for those and silently judge anyone who shares them and hide their future posts.

StealthPolarBear · 13/08/2015 07:00

A hoax warning bit off my ear and tried to snatch my children once so be careful

wannabestressfree · 13/08/2015 07:02

That Made me chuckle stealth.....

fourtothedozen · 13/08/2015 07:03

No I have never heard of these.
But then Facebook sounds a load of crap to me.

EatDessertFirst · 13/08/2015 07:12

I hate these things. I can't believe some of the trash some of my usually vair intellegent friends repost. Even the comments are full of 'this is FAKE' type comments. YANBU.

LazyLohan · 13/08/2015 07:21

Just stick em on ignore. It's got to the point where complaining about hoaxes is almost as tedious as the hoaxes themselves.

Collaborate · 13/08/2015 07:24

I operate a 2 strike policy. First time I see one from you I: 1. Think you're a numpty & 2. Point out to you it's a hoax. Second offence I either unfriend or unfollow.

jaggythistle · 13/08/2015 07:31

The August one was blindingly obvious. It had a picture of a calendar with the 1 st being a Friday, when it was only the week before and it had been a Saturday. Circulated to me by a retired teacher...

I just wonder if people read or think about any of it. Or if they just see the words "I'll bet you won't share this/share this for luck" etc.

I don't get too many likes/shares of "I'm not racist but.." posts, luckily.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 13/08/2015 07:33

Yes some people are just a bit thick

annandale · 13/08/2015 07:35

I am quite sad about the number of my friends and family who have been known to circulate these things, though it has calmed down now - it was most common with the older ones. I think it shows that we all trust things a lot less now - it would never occur to me to trust a random email or post until I'd checked it out, whereas my mother's generation trust written information it seems (I don't think they would automatically trust someone who came to the door). I have a family member in that generation who got embroiled in a horrible scam initially via email.

StealthPolarBear · 13/08/2015 07:48

What's the August one?

CassieBearRawr · 13/08/2015 07:50

Yes I'm curious too Stealth!

millionsmom · 13/08/2015 07:51

If I 'reply' at all it's normally with the hoaxslayer or snopes link.

One 'liker' told me to prove it was a hoax too. I just put more links on. I want to start a page that says something like 'Millionsmom is the only person you should aspire to be like. She's more perfect than Mary Poppins' just to see how far it goes. It's written down and on Facebook, it must be true

DisappointedOne · 13/08/2015 07:52

The August one is about there being 5 Fridays etc. The one I saw had August 1st as a Friday.......

DisappointedOne · 13/08/2015 07:55

www.truthorfiction.com/there-will-be-5-fridays-saturdays-and-sundays-in-august-2015/

It happens whenever there is a 31 day month that starts on a Friday. August 1st always a Saturday.

DisappointedOne · 13/08/2015 07:55

*was, not always!

Original poster

UngratefulMoo · 13/08/2015 07:56

It's something about how how there are five consecutive Friday/Saturday/Sundays in August and how it won't happen again for 800 years and the Chinese are really excited and if you forward the post you'll get loads of money.

It will happen again in 2025 (in August. Happens a lot in other months before then), and the Chinese, as far as I can tell, don't give a fuck.

OP posts:

passmethewineplease · 13/08/2015 07:56

I hate this, I can't believe people actually believe it and circulate it without even checking if it's true. Have you heard the one about the unmarked police car? Or the person getting in to car when their was a pram in the road? There's countless of them and they're all a load of bollocks.

temperato · 13/08/2015 08:01

Yanbu. Makes you realise how many people are quite hard of thinking.

sarkymare · 13/08/2015 08:14

YANBU I get irritated too. I have one relative in particular who does this with missing person posts. She shared one last week. I opened the comments to see if the person had been found and the very first ones I saw were 'glad he's home safe' it took me literally two seconds to find out that not only had the person been found, but they had been found almost a week ago.

Notso · 13/08/2015 08:19

YANBU. I am FB friends with a friend of DS1's, Mum. She posts all kinds of crap.
I linked to snopes once for something she posted and she actually replied "you can't believe everything you read online though"

ihatethecold · 13/08/2015 08:23

The Chinese, as far as I can tell, don't give a fuck.

hackmum · 13/08/2015 08:24

It's so weird. I've known otherwise intelligent friends post this stuff. And most of the time they're obvious hoaxes. It takes a matter of seconds to Google them and find out whether they're true or not, so why do people credulously repost this shit without checking? WHY?

Laquila · 13/08/2015 08:32

It's the hoax "missing child" ones that are really frustrating/upsetting, I think. The more of them people see on Facebook, the more "normalised" they get and the less attention people pay, meaning that the genuine ones get ignored. Why anyone makes up missing child posts is a mystery to me.

BeyondTheWall · 13/08/2015 08:40

Two reasons i can think of laquila

racism. "Little blonde girl snatched by black/asian gang..."
woman takes child away from abusive man. Man shares picture of his child with "have you seen this child". Someone tags a person in the location they have moved to/says "i'm sure i saw this child in asda in glasgow" etc

Never a good reason :(

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