Sophos Cloud Optix
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times.
Don’t believe everything you read on Facebook, and think carefully before sharing it with your friends.
Take this Facebook post, for instance, which calls on people to boycott McDonald’s.
PLEASE NOTE:
As an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies, African-American customers are now required to pay an additional fee of $1.50 per transaction.
Thanks for your cooperation,
McDonald's Corporation
The phone number at the bottom of that “McDonald’s” notice?
A quick internet search reveals that it’s actually the customer satisfaction number for KFC.
Regardless, almost 40,000 people have already shared the picture across Facebook. If only common sense were more common, maybe chain letters and hoaxes like this wouldn’t spread so far and wide.
1) 4chan comes up with prank to generate drama in real life
2) Prank is only executed in a few places, pictures are posted, it is forgotten
3) Ancient 4chan images found by some mom and a panic begins, -years- later
4) ????
5) The cycle of life continues.
Actually,
5) Profit.
Somethings I see never cease to amaze me. Are we really so lazy that we cannot verify something before posting it?
There are people who truly believe if something is on the Internet it is valid information. They seem to lack the capacity to recognize absurdity.
There is no such thing as common sense anymore. Shoot most people don't have any sense at all. SMH
Jeez…only 40,000 out of the hundreds of millions of Facebag users shared it? I must be getting cynical. I'm surprised that the number is so low.
google google google before posting
There's also a lack of standards at play. Some people post stuff because they still think there's a positive lesson to be gained from the chain-letter. They refuse to be held responsible because you know you're not supposed to believe everything you read on the Internet.
Nice amount of friend requests you have there
Somehow I don’t think they’re my friends..
Quite horsing around ;-p
Do I detect a wily marketing campaign at work here? (undercover marketing?)
I am not American so I do not know how the Guerrilla marketing PR will work out for McDonalds in the long run. However it is certainly getting them noticed for something they haven’t done and at no $ cost using Buzz/Viral techniques.
I receive a lot of “chain emails”. Most are humorous, and some are politically incorrect but still funny and obviously far-fetched. They are from friends of mine who enjoy receiving them too.
I always check any with serious political or racial implications, or containing health or security scares, and refer incorrect ones back to the sender, with copies to other recipients if they are available.
“If only common sense were more common, maybe chain letters and hoaxes like this wouldn’t spread so far and wide.”
We have a significant portion of the worlds population violently attempting to force medicine, food production, and science back into the dark ages. If only common sense were more common…
People who share rubbish like this on Facebook without checking it should receive a months IP/account ban
Repeat offenders should be perma-banned
I'm not even kidding
I don't think they should be IP banned because other users on that network will be banned too, also the could just go else where and log in, i.e their local internet cafe. A temporary account ban seems reasonable. And also maybe only people that have been confirmed as spammers should be blocked too.
What always makes me wonder about people isn't just the notice itself in things like this picture, but the even more 'Common Sense' that shows it's instantly a not very profoessional or convincing hoax.
Would McDonalds or any major retail chain put any notice 'supposedly' of such importance on a single sheet of A4 sized printer paper (which anyone can knock up in Word or Photoshop with a McD logo along the bottom print out on any printer) then stick up up all scew whiff with masking tape on the OUTSIDE of the window ? No! not even a bric a brac shop having a 1 day sale and hand writing a sign on paper for cheapness sake would be moronic enough to stick a sign made of paper on the outside of a shop. One puff of wind or a sprinkle of rain and the so called all important sign would be gone. Unfortuantely I still know people that share this kind of thing and are gullible enough to share it with me. *shaked head in resignation*
Never ceases to amaze me how people, especially in Facebook, will blindly re post and share things like this without doing a simple search to discover the truth, It's a personal 'mission' of mine to set it straight every time I encounter something like this, even if it's political and castigating the opposite side. It also amazes me how many, when confronted with truth, will give some lame excuse and leave it up. They're like a bunch of people gossiping over the back fence. Truth is irrelevant to them.
People prefer to believe these hoaxes. I got "unfriended" this week for linking to Hoax Slayers and Snopes in reply to a hoax posting.
A little attention to detail goes a long way. The notice is taped to the OUTSIDE of the window. When companies put up notices, be it on a door or drive-thru window, they are posted INSIDE. It would take seconds for someone to tape this up, showing the McDonald's interior in the background, snap a picture, take it back down and be on their way. Hence a hoax is born.
McDonalds is a major company. They may not be a healthy alternative, but they aren't THAT ignorant.