Pissed.
Posted on August 21, 2009
Sometimes, things just hit a little too close to home. One of my relatives posted a status message on facebook with:
AMBER ALERT IN OSHWA NY-3 YEAR OLD GIRL TAKEN BY A MAN DRIVING SILVER TRUCK Ontario PLATE # 728 381. If all of you reading my status would copy and paste into your status, it could potentially save a little girls life.
Like any mother, I reacted emotionally, and posted it as my own status. If, (and I have such a hard time even thinking about this) Chloe were missing, I wouldn’t care who, what or how the message got out. I would want everyone looking for her. Then, one of my friends explained that this was a hoax, and posted this link:
snopes.com
if you go to “what’s new” you’ll find that this is all a hoax.
I was pissed. I am sure that somewhere, there are some idiotic and inconsiderate teenagers that think this if funny. I hate that anyone would take advantage of a program whose primary function is to find lost children. This is not funny. It is not clever. It is criminal. I don’t think that they will ever actually get this message. Whoever started this created a viral message, and those of us that understand that a child’s safety is at stake, reacted. And now, when there is a child that is missing, and someone is trying to find them, people with think twice about sending out the message. Or believing the one they see.
There are some things you just don’t mess with. The safety of children is one of them. Whomever sent this out probably thought nothing of it. “I know, lets see how many people we can make take up the party line.” There are consequences for sending out false messages. You may not see them, you may not feel them, but they are there.
Sadly, the next time I see a message like that, I won’t act instinctively. I will check for its validity before I pass it on. Anybody who knows anything about missing children knows that every second counts. And the fact that I will take a few extra seconds to decide whether or not I can trust the message…well, who knows.