Friday, March 18, 2011

Alert - Acid Rain SMS is Just a Hoax

If you are mobile phone user, then there are good chances that you must have received multiple SMSes regarding Acid Rain, such as:

"A nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, exploded at 4.30am today. If it rains tomorrow or later, don’t go outside. If you are outside, be sure that you have rain protectors. It’s acid rain. Don’t let it touch you. You may burn your skin, lose your hair or have cancer. Please pass, stay safe and remind everyone you know."

So what this Acid Rain and the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan has to do with forward messages in Pakistan?

It might look a nonsense to you, but the fact is that these forwarded messages were spread in Malaysia and Philippines and somehow one of such message hit Pakistan to make its way to every mobile subscriber in the country.

Be Informed:

There is no such thing known as Acid Rain, and this is not happening anywhere, at least in Pakistan. In fact, authorities in Philippines and Malaysia have actually officially clarified that these chain messages are just a hoax and nothing more.

Forwarding an SMS (Containing Information) is a SIN

Propakistani have written in past that forwarding an SMS without verification is a SIN as per various Islamic scholars.

They say that forwarding an SMS (which contains information) without verification is just like you are lying to the recipient.

Sending forward jokes/quotations is fine.

Who Gets Benefited of these SMS Chains:

Just in case if you don’t know, these forward messages are usually spread by those VAS providers who develop and then drive these messages into masses.

So these companies must be aware of the fact that they are doing an illegal activity by spreading the fake/altered information.

We know that our authorities are not capable enough of capping all these fraudulent people, but as an individual we can can play our role by not forwarding messages without verification.

Remember:

If there is an emergency, or something which is worth communicating, your loved ones are going to call you. They won’t spread such severe information (such as Acid Rain) as an SMS.

Thanks to Samz for tipping us on this. - via Propakistani


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