Top image credit: Videoblocks

It’s always better to be safe than sorry—unless being “safe” really means being stupid.

This is what I can’t help thinking whenever I receive another chain message via Whatsapp. For instance, it can be a $100 voucher for Fairprice, which I will have to click on a dubious link to retrieve. There may even be a 2D1N cruise to be won, if only I clicked another link and filled in my NRIC, home address, and credit card number.

If any of these messages sound familiar, you may also have heard something about “a friend of a friend” of the original sender who drank water left overnight in a car and ended up getting breast cancer.

Many of these messages don’t just sound incoherent and completely bonkers, their content is often also sensational and vague. If you’re lucky, they’re kind of grounded in common sense. Otherwise, any semblance of truth tends to be stretched to an extreme.

They also typically offer a warning or reward for the recipient, effectively capitalising on human tendency to be drawn towards emotional extremes such as joy or misery.

Think about it this way: Whatsapp chain messages are the OG fake news. It doesn’t matter that these chain messages aren’t verified, and sometimes even describe completely inaccurate situations. They’re ‘fun’ to read, easy to digest, and so will get shared freely anyway.

And more often than not, this fake news is proliferated by the older generation, likely in their mid-forties and older.