My brother-in-law who believes everything that someone forwards him sent me this image in an email - Syrian protest signs, stating that the Syrians who can barely read Arabic hired an ex-U.S. army sergeant to make their English protest signs for them. I was not able to find it in Snopes, but it would be simplicity itself for someone to have doctored a picture of real Syrian protest signs. Since I make it my business to respond to his glurge with facts whenever possible, I would like to find out if this is real or not.
You’re brother in law is saying that no one in that large urban crowd knew enough english to take at least a guess what the signs were saying. That is absurd.
Why would Syrians hire an American to write their English signs for them? Plenty of Syrians read English.
Why are the protest signs printed in big block capitals instead of being hand lettered as they are in most other protests? This is photoshop, and not particularly convincing photoshop at that.
This email is racist BS. I hope you can convince your BiL of this.
Another thing while I’m thinking about this. Would any American living in Syria really be so stupid as to play this joke on his host country? Would he really risk being beaten by an angry mob and jailed/deported by an angry Syrian government just for the sake of this stupid joke? It makes no sense.
Note: I’m sticking with Syria since that was the country the email claimed the protests were in. As Snopes points out, the actual protest may not have been in Syria at all.
Credulous friends and family can be a bother, featherlou. Sometimes the best response is just to shake your head in bewilderment and change the subject.
I think the perfect solution is to send your brother-in-law a copy of the second image in that Snopes link to show him just how easy it is for someone to put Photoshop a picture and come up with a result as realistic as the one he fell for.
How come no one ever sends out massive quantities of sensible advice? It seems like the “Forward email” part of the brain is way across the head from the “discern bullshit” lobe.
