Internet memes

Over the years, I’ve seen quite a number of memes with ridiculous claims:

1. Hotmail plans to charge for their services unless you send this email out to all your contacts!
2. MSN/ICQ/AOL will start charging for their services unless you send this IM to all your contacts!
3. A child abductor was spotted in a white van cruising around local schools, email this to ALL your contacts!

Whenever I see these things being passed around, several things concern me:

1. The lack of fact-checking involved when accepting information from peers.
2. The lack of business understand from the general public.
3. People’s perception that they can incite drastic, monumental change by pressing a button, passing an email or joining a Facebook group.