SMS Hoax Backfires
Ooops. A woman in South Africa thought it would be a funny joke to SMS her boyfriend, telling him she had been kidnapped. The boyfriend, not surprisingly, contacted the police, who started a huge manhunt including over 100 police officers and two helicopters. Now, they want to take the woman to court partly to set an example to others out there not to do something quite so stupid.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team