Egypt tries to hang up on killer SMS rumours

dong20

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"The Egyptian government has sought to dispel rumours that a mobile phone text message "from unknown foreign quarters" is spreading around the country and killing those who receive it.

The extraordinary move by Egypt's health and interior ministries follows press reports that an SMS containing a special combination of numbers killed a man in the town of Mallawi south of Cairo.

"He died vomiting blood,followed by stroke, shortly after he received a message from an unknownphone number," the Egyptian Gazette reported on Wednesday."

I'm familiar with the 'real'* suggestive power of 'Juju/bhanamati/hoodoo/voodoo' and the numerous other terms for the phenomenon. This seems to be a more contemporary spin on the practice.

Add in a healthy dose of stage management thrown in no doubt and an outbreak of mass hysteria often follows!

* I say real because I know a few folk who still believe this stuff - to the point where it can cause psychosomatic symptoms, and of course there's no shortage of charlatans to prey on them.

Egypt tries to hang up on killer SMS rumours - Yahoo! News UK
 

midlifebear

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Well . . . actually, I've been responding to those SPAM e-mails from Nigeria and others from various "Doctors" in the UK with African-sounding names by threatening I'll invoke Kahli Mah (kali ma), the goddess who simultaneously eats her children while giving birth (old religious motif), if they do not remove my name from their e-mail database(s). I add a bit of made-up fake conjuring words and voila! I have reduced the number of SPAM to my regular business e-mail account to almost zero. Concidence? I think not.

CODA: Several years ago some movie about kids watching a video and then receiving a phone call threatening they will "die in seven days" was broadcast on local Spanish TV. I received three phone calls from "unknown" callers faking the voices of "witches" telling me "Vas a morir en siete diás." But I'm still around. However, I knew few people who had received the same phone calls and were suddently showing up in the confessional after 50 years. Shows ta go ya.
 
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dong20

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Who would actually believe something like that.

If you need to ask the question, you may be surprised at the answer ... a lot of people. some of whom have surprised me. A lot of the time it's cultural and subconscious but a few take it very seriously indeed.

Even more believe in more lightweight 'derivatives'; the astrology, not walking under ladders, Friday the 13th type things. Mostly harmless nonsense, but then I've met people who [re]arrange their lives around such things.