A disturbing new trend is the creation of fake AMBER Alerts that are being circulated via text messages. As documented on Snopes , “alerts” have historically traveled around the world many times through emails. The difference in this case is should you receive one as a text message, the sense of urgency to act probably is much greater. Unfortunately, they can hamper the efforts to find actual missing children as the public becomes more apathetic toward these messages.
The capability of receiving both text, photos and to browse the web on mobile devices has provided an excellent opportunity to issue legitimate alerts as needed.
