Should I believe the content of forwarded emails?

There’s probably a legimate use for that button that forwards a message to your entire address book, but I can’t think of one offhand. Forwarded emails can be profoundly irritating – not because they necessarily carry viruses, but because of the grossly misleading information they contain which creates befuddlement and confusion among its recipients.

I’ve received emails warning me that if I see a car driving at night in South London without lights and flash mine to warn them, I’ll be shot. Others telling me that if I forward this email I’ll receive a cheque for $245 from Microsoft. Others telling me that Osama bin Laden has been found hanged. All from perfectly intelligent people who have unquestioningly forwarded complete garbage – simply because they’ve failed to put their brain into gear.

Last week I received a breathless email begging me to sign a petition damning a Costa Rican artist, Guillermo Vargas. According to the petitioner: “He took a dog from the street and tied him to a rope in an art gallery, starving him to death.” (Close to 1m people have signed so far, with about 50 signatures added every minute.) The email ends: “If you want to double check all the above information you can Google the name of the ‘artist’ to see all I have just said corresponds to truth.”

Of course, if you search for Guillermo Vargas, all you find are webpages rammed with outraged comments about that same initial source of information – whatever that may have been. Whenever you doubt the legitimacy of a forwarded email, a good first step is to visit the magnificent myth-debunking website at snopes.com to see what they have to say; they currently have this story listed as “undetermined” – mainly because Vargas has made predictably vague statements since the exhibition in order to let publicity gain momentum. And at the moment, thanks to forwarded emails, that momentum is unstoppable.

Of course, if Vargas did mistreat an animal, I’m happy to sign. But until I’ve had it confirmed by a non-hysterical source, I’ll file the email alongside the one warning about the virus that’ll destroy my computer, give me Dutch Elm disease and make a batch of methamphetamine in my bath.