
India’s SMS Hoax Panic: Could It Happen In The U.S.? - spathak
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/23/indias-sms-hoax-panic-could-it-happen-in-the-u-s/
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tokenadult
Human frailty can happen to anyone, any time. I have been on Hacker News 1376
days now, and over the years I have seen highly educated people here believe
absolute nonsense on many (and, alas, repeated) occasions. Our best defense
against our common human cognitive bias of believing what we want to believe,
or what fits our preexisting prejudices, rather than the truth is to have
communication with our fellow human beings about what the facts show, and
which facts are most reliable, and how all the evidence fits together. In the
best case, Hacker News discussions can be practice in learning how to think
twice before believing the latest new story on the Internet. But already
today, and for every day thereafter, we will continue to see examples here of
people whose minds are already made up before they've sufficiently examined
their own beliefs on some controversy, and who will gladly pass on a rumor as
fact.

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603techguy
This happens daily via email threads, and more prominent media, that are
passed around. Recently I was told that President Obama had replaced all
forever stamps with stamps that celebrate an Isalamic holiday. Clearly false,
but had made its rounds among a large group of people. Don't under estimate
the stupidity and gullibility of a very large population.

~~~
ryanmolden
People tend to be very receptive to things that confirm what they already
believe. I don't know if stupidity or gullibility have as much to do with it,
those are just people whose juju is different than yours or mine.

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Brajeshwar
Well, This article is funny. The Chinese affiliation part is kinda weird.
Seriously, China?

I'm a North Easterner, Manipur to be precise, who moved to Bombay in 1999. In
Bangalore (the epicenter of the North East Exodus), since 2011.

I've lived long enough in Bombay, some in Pune and now in Bangalore. Have
travelled to almost all of the major cities in India for business and
pleasure. Of course, I've faced enough stare, ridicule and the perpetual
question, "Are you Indian!". Sometimes, it's fun and you get the 'foreign'
treatment (you know the way, we Indians treat foreigners, the good way) on
various occasions.

Those non-indian treatment were mostly in established government
establishments and mostly by not-so-educated people. I have never had an issue
with the educated people, working class people, colleagues and business
partners.

In India, most of the tourist destinations have two entry tickets - one for
Indians and for 'Foreigners', which is costlier. Me and my family always have
to carry an Indian Identity when we enter such spots to prove my "Indianness"
and avail of the Indian pricing. Once at the Taj Mahal, me and my wife could
not find our ID quickly. Instead of arguing with the person-in-charge, we got
the 'foreigner' tickets. Of course, we got the foreigner treatment and were
able to skip the long winding "Indian" queue to enter the gates to the Taj
Mahal.

As for the SMS hoax and the recent NE Exodus back home, it was fueled by the
fact that the North East people have always been kinda alienated by the common
Indians who could not understand and fathom that we, the 'Asian' looking
people live and thrive in India. Add to that, the miscreants taking chances of
a phenomenon and attacking any 'asian' looking people in the cities. So, it
was not just those NE people but many Tibetans, Nepalese were at the receiving
end.

The incident could have well been evaded but this is India and nobody,
specially the people in the governance, care about timely actions and getting
things done on time.

Finally, in my personal experience, I get a much better treatment from the
American people when I visit the US than here in my own country, India. Except
for the immigration officers, nobody cares who or from where the hell am I.
With my oriental look and an Indian Origin, I enjoy the company and good
treatment specially from both the communities in US. Anyway, everybody else is
too scared of lawsuits to have anything to do with racial profiling. :-)

As a parting note, here is a nice article about the perception of the general
Indian towards the North Easterners.
[http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-we-
the-i...](http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-we-the-
ignorant/989798/0)

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w1ntermute
No, a lot of the social ills in India, including this one, can be traced back
to poor education. And no matter what you say about the US education system,
it's nowhere near as bad as in India.

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KaoruAoiShiho
Did you guys even read the article? It cited at least 1 social media hoax
that's massively successful, the birther issue.

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trafficlight
The birther thing is straight up racism, not education. Maybe a little of
both, I suppose.

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icegreentea
The hoax in question prays as much on discrimination and "the other" as the
birther movement.

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PakG1
Just a note, I do think you mean preys. It gives quite a different meaning to
the sentence. :)

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xelipe
No. The article is a link bait opinion piece that is not all to thought out,
as evident by it's original claim that a large region of Indian wants to be
part of China.

I remember that days after 911 there were some fake/spam emails that where
forwarded around that claimed that more attacks where eminent, including at
malls and other public areas. These were immediately debunk and people went
about their business.

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suprgeek
It would be difficult to perpetrate this kind of Hoax in the US (though not
impossible). On the whole a lot of people would try to find some other source
to back up the SMS after the number of Hoaxes they have been subjected to.

Unless there was a really coordinated campaign that used multiple media
platforms to reinforce the message....

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thyrsus
It happens every hour on partisan "news" shows.

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matznerd
Any hoax or spam you've seen in email is being tried or has been tried with
SMS. Texts are read instantly, so the information can spread faster than
email. Social media is pretty quick with things like this because it is a one-
to-many broadcast medium.

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sageikosa
No

