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Caught my cousin sharing that 'penguins escaped from the zoo' story on Facebook
Honestly, she fell for it hard, said she saw it on some page called Wild Animal Alerts. I had to show her Snopes and the original post from 2017 before she finally deleted it. Anyone else have family members who just click share without a second thought?
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the_nina3mo ago
Oh yeah, "saw it on some page called Wild Animal Alerts" - that's exactly how my aunt got me with the "sharks in the interstate after a hurricane" post last summer. She was so convinced because the page had "Alerts" in the name, like that somehow made it official news. Took me showing her the same photo used in a hoax from 2013 before she finally rolled her eyes and admitted it might be fake.
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henrycooper3mo ago
Three summers ago my buddy Dave got absolutely hooked by one of those "missing child" posts that turned out to be from 2014 and in a different country entirely. He spent two whole days sharing it, tagging people, even called the local police station asking what they were doing about it. When I finally showed him the Snopes article he just stared at his phone for a solid minute and said "well it still could be true somewhere" and changed the subject to his lawnmower breaking down.
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henrycooper3mo ago
The_nina makes a good point about the "Alerts" trick - it's like these pages know exactly which words make people trust them. Makes you wonder if the people running them study psychology or just got lucky with the naming. What gets me is how hard it is to get someone to admit they were wrong even after you show them the proof. Did your cousin get defensive about it or just shrug it off? I've noticed the ones who fall for this stuff the most are the same ones who get mad at you for fact-checking, like you're the one being unreasonable.
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