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Culture

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Jan 7th 2005 5:27pm





How Do You Show That This Story Is No Longer Current Online?

from the tricky,-tricky... dept

There's the famous online urban legend of sorts, about the kid who had cancer and wanted to get into the world record books for receiving the most get well cards. For years and years, chain letters went around the world, both via email and on paper, asking for get well cards to be sent to an address. The kid not only broke the record (by a lot, it seems), but he also got better. Yet, the urban legend lives on. Many people genuinely want to help, but wouldn't it be nice if there were an easy way to say "look, thanks, but we're all good now." It seems something similar is happening now with the story of Hannes Bergstrom, a young Swedish boy who got lost in the after effects of the tsunami. A relative recognized him on TV a day or two later and he was reunited with his family. This was actually one of the first "reunited" stories I heard after the tsunami. However, emails are apparently still shooting around the world with his picture and asking for help identifying his family. One thing that the internet is often missing is some sort of "expiration date" on content. In fact, some content has no dating at all, which only contributes to the problem.

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  1.  
    identicon
    dorpus, Jan 8th, 2005 @ 12:14am

    Expiration of...

    Anyone notice that the news media has been recycling the same several-day-old images of tsunami victims? There is a reason for that -- the corpses are more bloated now and not suitable for mainstream audiences anymore.

    http://www.ogrish.com/archives/accident/tsunami/index.html

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Diana, Jan 10th, 2005 @ 2:56pm

    Email with Hannes picture still circulating

    Yes, today a well-meaning individual sent a mass email to our post-secondary institution in BC Canada with Hannes picture. A few of us replied b/c we saw his re-unification story on CNN. Emails should have reply sections. There is another email from an RCMP officer from Regina, SK Canada
    which had her email address....She forward some information about danger to females, and 7 months later, that email is still circulating and scaring people. I phoned the telephone # and it was for this police woman's phone and it says if you have recieved an email pls disregard it as a hoax.

     

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  3.  
    identicon
    thecaptain, Jan 11th, 2005 @ 5:26am

    No Subject Given

    Whenever my relatives send me those, I usually send a reply with the appropriate link on snopes.com (awesome site).

    When a co-worker and professional who really should know better (ie: a programmer) sends me one about a new virus and such...I attach the link, and this link:

    http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~robm/manual/virus/gullibility.html

    and make sure a copy is sent to at least a FEW people in his list. Only happens once hehe...




     

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