Hoax

A bulo (term used in Spain) or hoax (anglicism widely spread throughout Latin America) is a deliberately articulated falsehood so that be perceived as true, with a specific purpose. Anglicism became popular in Spanish when referring to massive deceptions by electronic means, especially the Internet. It also shares meaning with another popular Anglicism: fake.

Unlike fraud, which typically has one or more specific victims and is committed for criminal purposes and illicit gain, the hoax or hoax aims to be disseminated in a massive way, for this purpose making use of the oral or written press as well as other means of communication, Internet being the most popular of them at present and finding its maximum expression and impact in forums., social networks and in message chains of applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger and the like, as well as in emails. They do not usually have lucrative purposes or at least that is not their primary purpose, however, they can be very destructive.

Etymology

The exact origin of the word bulo is not known, according to the RAE it may come from the Caló bul 'poquería'.

For its part hoax (pronounced /hoʊks/ i>, meaning "to deceive" or (according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary) "to hinder, often with liquor" Hocus is a contraction of the magical spell hocus pocus, whose origin is disputed.

History

It could be said that hoaxes or hoaxes have been a constant in the history of humanity, linked to human psychology itself, since the first and oldest civilizations there is evidence of the existence of these, whether for economic, political or any other interest. Here are some well-known examples from history:

In Antiquity

Nero and the Great Fire of Rome

Despite the widespread image in popular culture of Nero playing the lyre while watching Rome burn, many sources attest that he was not in Rome that day: the sources place him in Antium. And even archeology has shown that the fire was fortuitous.

There was the effect of the scary phone: there was a rumor that Nero had been seen in a city garden, then someone heard that he watched the fire from a tower and years later the emperor played the lira from the imperial palace while the city burned, but the reality has nothing to do with this version.

Nestor F. Marquis, archaeologist.

I treat Christians

There are numerous rumors and even testimonies of murders of Christians eaten by lions. According to the archaeologist Nestor J. Marqués, this sentence existed, but only for certain crimes, not for religious reasons, likewise, he believes that there is "a lot of myth" in the persecution of Christians. «In three centuries a few hundred were condemned, concentrated in a period of 13 years. And even in the Roman edicts against the Christians, it was clearly said that there should be no bloodshed if it was not necessary.

Over the centuries, far from clarifying these events, they have been settling and consolidating even more, either by industries such as Hollywood and its famous blockbusters that have contributed to prolong misinformation in these areas, or by institutions like the ecclesiastical, which benefited from a story of victimhood, as the following author attests:

“Through my career as a historian I have found many times with events of Roman history that are accepted without being thoroughly investigated. Since this event is part of the canonical Christian history, the Church did not have much interest in analysing it from a critical point of view.”

Brent D. Shaw, Professor of Classical Studies at Princeton University.

On social media

These are emails, as well as messages (in the form of text, images or videos) on different social networks with false or misleading and attractive content. It is usually distributed in a chain by its successive recipients due to its impressive content that seems to come from a serious and reliable source, or because the same message asks to be forwarded, brandishing a "reward" automatically to the reader if he follows this instruction (for example: he is free of his mobile being infected) and producing an automatic placebo effect (for example: feeling that he is helping his contacts, by giving them information of supposed relevance and that until then they were unaware of).

People who create hoaxes usually aim to indirectly harvest email addresses (to send spam, viruses, phishing messages, or more hoaxes to on a large scale), or also trick the recipient into revealing their password or accept a malware file, as well as mislead or manipulate the public opinion of society.

Basically, they can be alarms about incurable viruses; falsified messages about natural disasters or health alerts of great public interest, fallacies about people, institutions or companies, religious-themed messages; solidarity chains; lucky chains; methods to become a millionaire; gifts from large companies; urban legends; and other chains.

Studies carried out

According to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hoaxes are shared 70% more than real news and, since they are shared more, they also spread faster, so much so that news true takes six times longer than a non-true one to achieve the same range.

The Association of Internet users, an independent group of Internet users in favor of the rights of Internet users, has carried out an independent study of 3,129 Internet users, showing that close to 70% do not know how to distinguish between truthful information and hoaxes.

Guidelines for recognizing a hoax on the Internet

Some of the guidelines to recognize if certain information is a hoax or not, are:

1. Most of the hoaxes they are anonymous, do not cite sources (as they lack them) and are not signed to avoid legal repercussions.
2. Them hoaxes They lack a date of publication and are drawn up as timelessly as possible to survive the maximum time circulating on the network.
3. Them hoaxes they contain a hook to capture the attention of the computer. His success will reside in how morbid, monetary, fear-generator is his hook and above all in the way that fits the environment.
   • Example WhatsApp: WhatsApp is to be paid impendingly... forward this message to X people before day X — (Fears based on monetary value).
   • Example Hotmail: Hotmail will close your bills. Loss of contacts and fine of a lot of money — (Fears based on monetary value).
   • Example Google: We're already warned by Google... they went on TV... in case the doubts... Using Google and Gmail will cost money — (Fears based on monetary value).
   • Example Actimel: Actimel is bad for health. Produce L. Casei and stop manufacturing defenses — (Health-based fear gang).
   • Example Redbull: Redbull contains poison in its chemical composition — (Gancho of fear based on health damage).
   • Example Mobile Phone: You get a phone call and instead of appearing the phone number of the caller appears the word "INVIABLE!" or "Unknown." If you accept or reject the call the extortortioner accesses the SIM from your phone, duplicates it and uses it to call from jail — (Gancho of fear based on being a victim of a scam).
4. Them hoaxes, they are usually written in the international standard language (whatever the case of the language used), to facilitate their global dissemination.
5. Them hoaxes They usually contain a request for forwarding: the forward is requested to alert other people, to avoid bad luck, to avoid death, to raise awareness of others or for any other reason. The purpose of this forward request is to capture email addresses, create databases, carry out subsequent spam campaigns or simply disseminate false information as much as possible.