Admit it: you've forwarded cyber-panic

Being the consummate translator, here’s how my brain automatically interprets the phrase Urgent Message in an email subject line: elimina y sonríe (hit the delete button and smile).

It’s a primordially human reaction. Think of a newborn’s first adoring little gases. First-time parents looking at the baby’s precious face might even say “Awww, her first smile!” But the nurses know better: when the infant is passing gas, the exertion makes her lips contract into a gentle, Mona Lisa smile.

I began to delete and smile soon after I started using email, back when the 486 PC Dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, and it surprises me how many people my age and older still forward a forwarded email with the subject line Urgent Message.

To be specific, the subject line looks something like this:

Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Urgent Message

Recently, one of my contemporaries sent me a message with the subject line Una preguntita (Quick Question), but the content was surprising. She’s an international reporter who has worked border violence stories in Mexico, and she was trying to do what responsible journalists do: confirm before repeating.

So, here’s her question:

“En Monterrey está circulando este correo [adjunto]. Quizá no es nuevo ni cierto pero como sabes mi familia está allá […] me gustaría saber si [la policía] sabe algo de ésto y si tiene alguna información que compartir con mi familia.”

(The attached email is circulating in Monterrey. Perhaps it’s not new or true, but as you know my family is over there […] I’d like to know if [the police] knows anything and if [they have] any information [they] might share with my family.)

The surprising part was that the attached email included the letterhead of a Mexican government official. However, the content is as old as the first messages transmitted over phone-line Internet connections.

In summary, it warns the population that a particular street gang is initiating its recruits by making them drive with the headlights off. Knowing that people tend to alert distracted drivers by flashing their own headlights, the recruit’s mission was  (supposedly) to murder the occupants the first vehicle flashing it’s headlights. This was supposed to happen on a particular weekend in Montrerrey, Nuevo León, México.

You have probably seen emails like this. They are characterized by particularly large, colorful fonts, and the random use all-caps and exclamation points, thus breaking the 2^nd commandment of email messaging –the first one being “if thou must re-forward, do not violate everybody else’s right to privacy by leaving their email address on the message.” And admit it: you’ve probably re-forwarded a few of these urgent messages yourself… just in case.

My friend asked me the police’s opinion because I used to work as a Public Information Officer (PIO) at the Houston Police Department (HPD) and I currently work with an organization called Transborder International Police.

What I shared with my friend and her relatives is that, back in the pre-9/11 days at HPD, I received an email from a TV reporter who had received the exact email. The only difference was that the Urgent Message was in English and focused in the Houston area.

Back then I asked police officers I knew in several HPD divisions, ranging from Solo Motorcycle Units, to East Command, to Accident Reports, and Homicide. They all replied something along the line that they had not seen or heard of any police report resembling that description. An officer in a Gang Task Force was bold enough to tell me that this was most likely a hoax.

The reporter was disappointed that he didn’t have an exclusive story to air. But, again, I give him credit for investigating. Some just thrive in creating/augmenting panic. Happily, several weeks came and went, and sure enough, we received no reports even remotely resembling the circumstances described in the infamous Urgent Message.

That’s what I relayed to my friend together with a warning to take prudent precautions when driving at night.  I told her that unconfirmed messages like that only add to the general panic people are already suffering. Finally, I replied that the fact that the letterhead of an official was on the message does not imply any kind of official confirmation. It most likely means that the Mexican official received the so-called urgent message, did not confirm it, and forwarded it to friends, and then friends re-forwarded, and so on. Otherwise, if the official really wanted to warn the regiomontanos (citizens of Monterrey), she could have issued a news release.

What about the slight chance that any of these urgent messages might have an iota of truth in tem? Would you want your friends to roam the streets carelessly and then feel guilty if, Dios libre (God Forbid) something should happen? Of course not. But you can’t prevent every incident your loved ones are involved in, so if all you want to do is cover that “just in case” feeling, just preach awareness. Always.

Back in the HPD days, awareness of your surroundings was our crime prevention mantra. Today, it’s still a personal one. Between then and now I’ve deleted hundreds of urgent messages. I am still safe, knowing that if a message really needed my immediate attention it would actually state the subject in the subject line. So don’t panic upon receiving an Urgent Message. Just do your friends a favor:  breathe-in and hit the delete button; then breathe-out and smile. Namaste.