- Font size > 12 point (less true the larger the font size)
- Forwarded so many times the original email is 4 or more levels below the most recent email
- The message forwarded to a number of recipients without the forwarder adding anything substantive as commentary (ratio of forwarded text to added text very high)
- Ratio of exclamation points to periods.
- Multiple colored text in the original email
- Number of recipients in the forwarded email
- Any urging in the email to 'keep this going' or 'pass this along to everyone you can'
- Links to snopes in the original email (often not even to the right topic) or an assertion in the original email that it was 'checked on snopes'
Monday, July 6, 2009
Untrue email indicators (enhanced)
I found myself writing an enhanced follow-up to a previous blog posting on the indicators that correlate to the likely falsehood of a chain email. In my experience on the Internet, there are many factors which _negatively correlate_ to the truthfulness of a chain email message (meaning, the presence of one or more of these factors only increases the probability that the content is bunk). I could likely write a program to analyze emails for these factors and identify about 100% of chain emails:
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