Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Unfunny Amber Alert Hoax Spreads Via Twitter and Text Message

by Terrence O'Brien on February 14, 2009 at 07:10 AM

Unfunny Amber Alert Hoax Spreads Via Twitter and Text Message
Living in the connected age -- where things like Twitter and text messaging are an accepted part of life -- is great. We're able to pass information quickly across vast distances to large amounts of people. There is the inevitable downside, though; once you get that ball of information rolling, it's almost impossible to stop.

That's why, before repeating information, a little fact checking is in order. Otherwise, you may become part of a grand and, at least in this case, incredibly unfunny hoax. Last Sunday, a fake Amber Alert started making its way around Salt Lake City, Utah via text and Twitter. Within two days, it had spread like wildfire to Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and plenty of places in between. The original text message read "AMBER ALERT A 7 yr old girl was taken by a man driving a newer silver truck. The license plate reads 72b381 please please pass on." It was tweaked slightly as it made the rounds to become location specific, but a quick Twitter search for "72b381" shows it popping up across the country in cities and towns separated by thousands of miles, even after authorities debunked it.

It's a shame nobody thought to check the Active Amber Alerts page sooner. [From: About.com via Textually.org]

Related links:

Tags: amber alert, amber alerts, AmberAlert, AmberAlerts, hoax, sms, text messaging, texting, TextMessaging, twitter

Comments

2

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular