Viral emails get circulated around offices and places of businesses far too easily. It happens all the time, and is an enormous waste of time and a danger to company productivity and morale. What happens is that some employee receives a viral email that propagates some untrue rumor or urban myth, but which nonetheless evokes a strong reaction. Said employee says to himself or herself, “Why, everybody needs to know about this outrage!” And so they click “send all” and everyone in the company gets it. Pretty soon, everybody in the company is outraged about the rumor–the fact that it’s not true is besides the point–and productivity suffers. I get these all the time–but the only outrage is that the content contained in them is incorrect and usually designed just to rile people up.

These emails pop up all the time, usually propagating some sort of misinformation surrounding a minority group, immigrants, or government policy. In almost every case, the facts are completely false, but they deal in subjects that are sure to get a response.

Of course, these have no place in the office, and the administrator would be justified in appending the use policy to prohibit distribution of these emails. Of course, besides wasting time and getting people angry over false information, they just contribute to the ever-widening sea of useless email that clogs up all of our email servers, since the typical response is to say, “Oh, this is terrible, I have to send this to everybody in my mailbox right now!” The viral emails that perpetrate these and other rumors are a waste of time and a danger to society–any company use policy needs to prohibit propagating viral “rumor” and urban myth emails.