To wonder why people repeat myths on the internet without checking

[hackmum]

Someone on Facebook has just posted a link to the story about Zouheir, the "Muslim" who supposedly confronted a suicide bomber outside the Stade de France last week.

Except it's not true, as this BBC story explains:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34845882

It takes a matter of seconds to check something like this. Yet the Muslim Council of Britain repeated the story in its advert condemning the attacks.

Obviously it's not just this story - it happens all the time. Another friend just posted something purporting to be a speech to schoolchildren by Bill Gates, except it isn't. But I don't get why. It's so easy to check stuff now - just a few seconds of googling.

So why do otherwise intelligent people (and both the people I've just cited are highly educated) not check? Why don't they learn from experience? Is it that they're just not that bothered whether something is true or not?

Can anyone enlighten me?

You do know that snopes posters are just meanies who want to make everyone else look bad and don't pop their bubble maan. Meanie cynical bastards. :)

And the 'type 1 in the comments to see what happens'. The number of dozy bastards who do that!

I might glitter my foof for my next smear. Mess with snopes

I couldn't agree more.

I've downloaded this one and I'm going to post it on every single bloody bullshit post.

I have some fb friends in the US through work, and one of them posted a meme about the Bataclan massacre and how come there weren't any 'cell phone' photos, implying that it's a conspiracy. I was so angry, but I just clicked the 'no longer see posts from x' choice.

Yes, I've had the meadowhall one (again this year).

The ones I've mostly had to debunk, happily, are about missing children.

However getting back to the OP, why are you so certain that the BBC is a reliable source, I have heard all kinds of falsehoods on the BBC so could not take it as the bible myself.

I used to have a Pinterest board called NOT Ireland, full of pins of Cotswold villages labelled 'Ireland', 'beautiful Ireland', Tuscan scenery -- 'so green and Irish'; a rock in a tropical bay with a castle on top, labelled 'Castle house, Dublin', little Icelandic turf cottages with 'Keldur, Iceland' clearly to be seen under them, labelled 'cute little Irish cottages' by the previous pinners, heavily photoshopped waterfalls that were called 'Waterfall of the Gods, Ireland', photos of very tanned shepherds with flocks of sheep and goats labelled 'Irish countryside' (sometimes 'beautiful Scotland') that actually depict a scene from Pakistan, another showing sheep on a zig zag sheep path in the Alps, and many, many more. I got rid of it because people were repinning the photos to their Ireland boards, the eejits.

DM was a great one for posting urban legends as true stories. I think these were her reasons:

• conspiracy theory - 'they' don't want you to know this
• wanting to be in on a story
• vicarious thrill of horror
• an element of victim blaming

Actually, it is just tabloid journalism with even lower standards

Wellthen

I first heard that poo story on Scott Mills show on Radio 1, since then it's happened to a frown of a frien and it's also on a thread in Classics.

Why oh why

A friend of mine posted a story about someone selling perfume and when they spray it in your face it renders you immediately unconscious and they rob you. How is that even a tiny bit believable? And yes she got arsey when I Snoped her.

Yeah, I got that chloroform perfume post on FB a couple of days ago. The odd thing is I remember it doing the rounds over 20 years ago.......

The "friend" who works as a carer and took blind old lady to care home who says: " I already love it here" then proceeds to sermonise about how you should always be positive. Cute picture of the happy old lady with the an ice cream. The picture is a famous professional photograph. And is not of a random old blind lady from England.

All these stories are modern fairy tales really, aren't they? Teaching you to be kind to strangers, to be contented, ... and to be afraid of strangers.

I have a face book friend who keeps sharing pictures of Liam Neesan supposedly from his FB page complete with smalzy quotes from him. One of the quotes was actually from MLK but people were still commenting "well said Liam." There was also a selfie of him asking for likes to see who remembers him as he's old and new to face book. Trouble is I've seen the same words from three different actors this week! People are so gullible.

Just looked on fb and one of my friends has shared the Lauren story. And underneath people are commenting, thank you for sharinbf this it's really useful!

*sharing

I think sometimes people's friends genuinely have told them that x,y,z has happened to them - based on whatever urban legend. So they aren't necessarily lying. Their friend, however,...

I also recall how the "muslim" giving the warning to stay out of somewhere was originally someone in the IRA.

And as I used to work in the MOD when the IRA was still active, I got this told to me many times.....

I was told this story at a Christian social get together by a Christian architect who we knew fairly well.

www.snopes.com/racial/mistaken/hitfloor.asp

He said it happened to a close male friend of his and he simplified it slightly. I only realised it was a load of rubbish when I heard the same story being told on the radio, but with a different black actor.

I wasn't angry, but I did think how pathetic it was and never saw the guy in the same way again.

Do you all remember "welcome to the AIDS club" story that did the rounds 30 yrs ago?

Was it about a nice girl on a flight, who had this whirlwind romance with gorgeous guy. After they sleep together she receives a parcel with a dead rat inside and a message saying "welcome to the aids club".

There was also a version for men, where the woman scrawls that message on the mirror with her lipstick.

I was 15 and these stories scared me! Whjch I guess was their point.

fireside - I remember someone told me the Eddie Murphy story a few years ago. Told, of course, as if it was a true story that had happened to a friend of a friend.

Limited - I hadn't heard the term "Magical Negro" before. It fits that Zouheir story very well. There's that well-meaning but patronising desire to fight back against racism by making the black person (or in this case the Muslim) the hero of the hour.

My MIL assured me that we musn't use magnets on fridges as the magnetism does something to the food inside that gives you cancer.

She now keeps her tacky holiday magnets (that are barely strong enough to hold a sheet of paper up) on a board next to the fridge .

Oh thank you all! This thread is my spiritual home!
I get ridiculously annoyed at the shite people post on fb - my latest obsession is people replying to celebrities (Hi Matt LeBlanc, no I don't think you look old I loved you as Joey in Friends blah blah) when ONE CLICK onto the profile would show you it's a fan page
That and trying to get free stuff - Virgin are offering free flights for you and your family for a year - NO THEY'RE NOT! Again, one click on the site and it's clearly fake.
It's not like I'm a social media genius (too old!) but it's just common sense!
Phew rant over, I feel better! Oh god now I've just remembered that ship's captain conversation and it turns out one of them is a lighthouse...
www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp

I don't get many of these (hardly any fb friends) but I did get the one about Kurdish female soldier killing 100 ISIS soldiers. It's one of those, get a picture of someone, anyone, and add a story to it. digg.com/2014/the-truth-behind-the-kurdish-female-soldier-fighting-isis