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Comment by puranjay | Hacker News Reader

My parents are far from being uneducated, but even they believe that any forward sent through WhatsApp is actually from the authority figure mentioned in the message.

Messages usually exploit this by mentioning how "XYZ warning" is according to scientists at NASA/MIT/IIT. My parents - who are both in their 70s - believe that these messages actually originated from NASA/MIT, etc.

I don't know how to fight this. I've tried explaining it to my parents yet they don't get it.

I can't even imagine how hard it would be to dispel these myths and beliefs among uneducated people.

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The only way to stop this quick is to remove forwarding systems. If people have to make some non trivial effort to share stuff, that effort and time will be saved only for important stuff. No will spend time typing all this click bait for every single recipient.

We can try education but that will take at least a generation or two to take effect.

This is a problem that can take care of itself if left alone. It's resolvable only with experience. If not, we'll enable worse problems - oppressive governments.

I remember when first got online, I fell for every "make money online scheme." The experience thought me to subconsciously / automatically ignore them.

Rather than spend unnecessary resources on a technical solution or filter, lets inoculate them.

FAKE NEWS INOCULATION

Create more ridiculous rumors that can easily be debunked.

WhatsApp and other platforms can randomly spam their users with these lies and at the end of the message, write - its a joke, April fool or whatever.

With this, we'll get to nirvana in half the time, with 10% effort and resource.

> WhatsApp and other platforms can randomly spam their users with these lies and at the end of the message, write - its a joke, April fool or whatever.

I worry that would have the opposite effect - it would train people to look for that, then assume messages that _don't_ have it are real.

I just saw your message, but this is a brilliant idea.. assuming you can get people to finish watching to the end, so it doesn't backfire!

I could also imagine gamifying... tie the Report button to in-store credit or some kind of "debunker" badge, to reward people guessing that videos are hoaxes.

You’re right, but the problem is not with those apps. Before that, all that garbage was forwarded through e-mails.

My dad used to drive me crazy forwarding hoaxes. But in his case, it was because he knew it will, and found it amusing. As he told me « I only forward you a 10th of what I receive ! »

That’s a bit of a heavy club. I forward dozens of messages every day and it would really suck to lose these features in software because some psychos are misusing it. Why not root out and eliminate the psychos?

Agreed. The only way is to restrict the virality. You can still retain the original intent of the feature by allowing single forwards (simply tag forwarded messages and don't allow them to be forwarded).

Try making a similar video yourself and sending it to them?

Even better, send them one from a power they absolutely trust telling them to disregard all other messages.

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