With the holidays here, there may be more spam than normal. We could receive spam in our emails and also on social media. We always want to believe we could get a chance to win a shopping spree to our favourite store or that by ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ something, that cancer patient will receive money from Facebook. Please be careful. Unfortunately, everything we read and watch on the internet is not true.
I really want to emphasize you need to always read carefully before you click like or share on your social media. Take a few moments to read the wording. Sometimes it is in the fine print, sometimes you’ll notice it seems legit, but the email address is not right or the logo has the slightest error to it. And most times, if it seems too good to be true, it is. Do your research if you are uncertain.
Last year, on November 11th, I had put the following on my personal Facebook wall. A friend put something similar on her profile this year and it made me realize how trusting we really are. We are a group of amazing, caring people, but unfortunately, there are a few people that thinks it is fun to create havoc.
The following is not evil in anyway. It’s just funny (especially if you know me well), but it shows you how taking the extra time to read is so important.
Here is what I wrote:
Well it’s OFFICIAL!!! I have some Amazing but at the same time shocking news…. I’m expecting 7 weeks and counting!!! I know, I am in shock too. I can hardly believe it myself. I wasn’t going to post anything on Facebook but since you are all close friends and family I wanted to make it official. I’m too overwhelmed to keep it a secret! Who would have guessed me of all people would be expecting, but I am!!!!!!!!! I am expecting SANTA in just 7 weeks…repost if you have a sense of humour….let’s see how many read the whole status.
Wow! Not only did I have 29 likes, but I had 32 comments. One of those comments were from me saying this is Christmas humour. But believe it or not, some people still didn’t take the time to read that it was a joke. 3 people actually congratulated me on being pregnant in the comments. 4 people congratulated me in a private message AND another 3 people congratulated me in person.
Please take a moment to read everything. You never know what you could be liking or sharing. When you like, share, retweet, reply, etc. your name and profile picture is out there for the world to see you what you are doing. It may be something funny like my scenario, or worse, it could be a virus you just added to your computer and spreading it around to others.
