Netiquette IQ - Four Ways to Never Be Duped Again on The Internet

The other day, I came across this headline: " Study: Beginning Email With Short, Disingenuous Inquiry Into Personal Life Best Way To Network"

I had to scratch my head. It sounded like it had conviction, but was simply wrong by Netiquette standards. It turned out a well-known company had been duped by this and republished it from "The Onion". They were fooled. The article below expresses some thoughts of avoiding any dupe. You can view the Onion article below. Remember it is a satire!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-beginning-email-with-short-disingenuous-inqu,37487/
========================================

4 simple steps to ensure you'll never, ever be tricked by an internet hoax again

You're too smart to share this nonsense

By Scott Meslow | November 11, 2014 theweek.com

Relax, internet: Macaulay Culkin is fine. (SCOTT WEINER/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

On Saturday, millions of internet users spent the day mourning the death of Macaulay Culkin. He wasn't actually dead, but that was a minor detail in the story, which spread across the internet like all too many other stupid hoaxes that spread across the internet every day.

The fake story reporting Culkin's death was tweeted 23,000 times, and shared more than five million times on Facebook. By the time Culkin responded, the story had already picked up too much steam for anyone to stop it — including Culkin.

Where did a hoax so unstoppable come from? A Facebook memorial page and a poorly written, six-paragraph story from "msnbc.website," which doesn't even bother to resemble an actual MSNBC page. The Culkin case was hardly an abberation. This is the kind of thing that happens with distressing frequency, from the "death" of Breakfast Club star Judd Nelson to the "arrest" of graffiti artist Banksy.

The internet keeps playing the same tricks, and we keep refusing to learn how to spot them. It's never been easier to throw together a halfway-convincing story and make it go viral — and since the perpetrators of these annoying hoaxes have no reason to stop, it's up to readers to develop a keener sense of whether a story is actually true before they share it. Fortunately, that's a pretty easy thing to do. Here are four simple steps you can start following right now:

1. Check for additional sources before you share anything

The death of a celebrity like Macaulay Culkin at any age — let alone at age 34, with absolutely no warning — would be major national news. But anyone who bothered to search for his name after seeing the original "death" story would have discovered that the news of his death hadn't been reported anywhere else. By Sunday, the only stories about Culkin would be the ones debunking the reports of his death.

A Google search is usually enough to determine the veracity of a story. But before you share anything even a little dubious, it is always worth checking Snopes.com — an independent website that has spent more than 20 years fact-checking every rumor that comes across its desk. Snopes is as efficient as it is accurate; they debunked the Macauley Culkin death rumor the day it went viral. Here's their "What's New" page, which gives you a feed of the most recent stories they've tackled.

2. Learn which websites not to trust

These are a few of the bogus websites you should never trust:

       Empire News

       The National Report

       Huzlers

       Daily Currant

       Free Wood Post

While posts from The Onion and Clickhole are occasionally mistaken for legitimate news, their primary goal is genuine satire, not trickery — and by and large, they're pretty great at it. That's not the case with these lesser rip-offs, which use the paper shield of "satire" to justify the real reason they exist: tricking people into sharing fake stories they believe are genuine.

Many of these posts go viral because they play on the fears, biases, and stereotypes of politically polarized readers both conservative ("Congress Approves Bill That Will Offer Free Automobiles To Welfare Recipients") and liberal ("Mitt Romney: I Can Relate To Black People, My Ancestors Once Owned Slaves"). Other popular variations traffic in hopes ("Vince Gilligan Announces Breaking Bad Season 6") and fears ("Meteorologists Predict Record-Shattering Snowfall Coming Soon"). They're all fake.

3. Unfollow any website that lies to you

So you're scrolling through your Facebook news feed, and you discover that one of your friends has shared a hoax link from one of those annoying websites. What should you do?

On the top-right corner of any post in your Facebook news feed, you'll see an arrow. Click on the arrow and select "Hide all from [insert name of terrible lying website]." No matter how many shares they get from your gullible friends, you'll never see a story from the offending site again.

4. Use common sense

These hoaxes exist because click-trolling people write them — but they thrive because thousands of people thoughtlessly share them. Would Buzz Aldrin actually tweet that the moon landing was faked on a soundstage? Would casino owners actually try to legalize dog-fighting? Would the Kansas City Royals tap George Zimmerman to throw out the first pitch at the World Series?

Whether or not you have time to carry out the proper due diligence, these stories — and many stories that seem shocking or flattering to a specific political perspective or worldview — are designed to manipulate you into thoughtlessly sharing them.

Remember: Sharing something is the equivalent of a personal endorsement. It's an implicit guarantee from you that a story is genuine, and that reading it is a valuable use of your friends' and followers' time. Take 30 seconds to determine whether something is real before you blast it out to hundreds of people. We'll all have a better internet for it.

==============================================
  In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, " Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:
 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.
 Great Reasons for Purchasing Netiquette IQ

·         Get more email opens.  Improve 100% or more.

·         Receive more responses, interviews, appointments, prospects and sales.

·         Be better understood.

·         Eliminate indecision.

·         Avoid being spammed 100% or more.

·         Have recipient finish reading your email content. 

·         Save time by reducing questions.

·         Increase your level of clarity.

·         Improve you time management with your email.

·        Have quick access to a wealth of relevant email information.

Enjoy most of what you need for email in a single book.
===========================================