Email purporting to be from fast food giant McDonald's claims that the recipient can print out an attached invitation to receive a "Free Dinner Day" meal on June 26, 2011.
Message warns Facebook users that they should remove any profile picture containing children because people are stealing such pictures and using them in sex advertisements. A later version tacks on an example Facebook page where such activities are supposedly taking place.
A viral video apparently depicts a prank turned deadly in which a young woman gets hit and killed by a car as she runs terrified from her house after a friend poses as a masked intruder.
Message claims that a series of attached images depict, not a hotel as the viewer might first assume, but the vast and luxurious house of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former president of the United Arab Emirates.
Circulating email claims that an alert has been issued in South Africa regarding a dangerous infestation of African Giant Pouched Rats, which are thought to be responsible for the recent deaths of two young children in townships.
Tip of The Week: Online Email Etiquette Tip - DON'T SHOUT!
If you USE ALL CAPS in your email or social media posts, you will immediately make yourself seem inexperienced or ignorant. Most experienced computer users consider the use of all capital letters to be the Internet equivalent of shouting.
For those of us who spend a lot of time hanging out in cyberspace, messages written in all capital letters are reminiscent of trying to hold a conversation in which one person is shouting every word while others are speaking at a normal volume. Also, a message written in all capitals is harder to read. In blocks of text rendered in all capitals, words lose their "shape" because they are all the same height. Each word becomes a uniform rectangle. Most people read and quickly recognize words by looking at their overall shape. We do not read by visualizing words one letter at a time.
Capital letters are best left for their intended usage and, sparingly, to emphasize a particular word or phrase.
This restriction on the use of capital letters might seem silly and you might dismiss it as unimportant. However, using all capitals in your messages will adversely affect how people perceive you online.
Email warning claims that criminals are attempting to incapacitate women in order to rob or rape them by handing them business cards laced with a powerful drug called Burundanga
Email message claims to be the transcript of an interview with tennis star Serena Williams in which she states that it is better to date white men than black men
Email warns that certain kinds of cacti can harbour large tarantula spiders that will be explosively released from the plants when they reach maturity.
Email claims that HIV infected blood has been placed in the ketchup dispensers of fast food outlets
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Editorial - Don’t Feed the Trolls
An unfortunate fact of social-media life is that there is certain set of pathetic losers out there who get great enjoyment out of posting inappropriate, offensive and sometime utterly sickening material online with the sole intention of provoking anger and outrage among other web users. These cyber morons also get their jollies out of creating arguments and enmity between social networkers. In my opinion, the best way to deal with these trolls is simply not to feed them. They feed off the anger and angst they create so, if you don’t react, they starve.
Of course, there are certainly times when responses are required. But, whenever possible, just ignore them. Don’t engage, because that is what they want. If you are in a position to do so, simply delete their posts without comment. Otherwise, quietly report them or inform an admin or moderator.
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