How can I gently explain to non-techie friends they are the victim of a hoax? [closed]

"When it comes to hoaxes and non-techie users, being gentle is really the wrong tactic.

It's only a matter of time before they fall for something that actually harms them, by stealing their information, or something else. They need to learn, and quickly.

Personally I reply all with a link to snopes or elsewhere, explaining that it's a hoax. Then I include this line: ""Every email that asks you to forward to all your friends is a hoax, or a joke by somebody that just wants to clog people's email."""

I agree with the comments on using Snopes, but since your question asked how to explain the hoax gently, I would often start my reply by something like, "I saw this before and someone told me it's a hoax. Here's a link to an article on Snopes." Depending on the person, I sometimes follow up with a quick explanation of what the Snopes.com site is all about.

"I tend to reply briefly to all, something like this:

Fear not, it's a hoax. see [insert snopes.com link here]

Over time, they either learn to be more skeptical, check snopes.com themselves, or take me off of their junk-mail-forwarding list.

All of which are Good Things.

The rare item that is actually true gets a similar reply-to-all:

oddly enough, this is a true story - and the details
make it even better, see [insert snopes.com link here]

Once again, to subtly encourage the use of snopes.com."

"I just talk to the person -- separately, away from others, and preferably not over e-mail. I tell them that when they get something, anything like that, the first thing they should do is validate it over on snopes.com. (Something you're already doing for them.)

If I suspect they can't handle that, then I just let it be. I learned a long time ago that some people just don't want to be corrected, even when they're not only wrong, but possibly dangerously so. :)"

I just don't make friends with the easily led :) Forwarding a mass email is a fast track to be flagged as a spammer.