(14 minute read.)
Bob is missing! Click and share.
- I’ll bet I won’t even get one like. Click and share.
- My true friends will share this. Click and share.
- Let’s fill Facebook with this! Click and share.
- Tell everyone you know about this! Click and share.
- True Christians will share this! Click and share.
- Send a hug to everyone you know! Click and share.
NOTE: I will edit and update as is necessary.
Warning!
From the get-go I want to say that this is lengthy and that the people who need it the most probably won’t bother with reading it.
On a regular basis I make it a point to ask myself if I’m interested in being truthful with what I’m sharing. Obviously this only applies to certain types of posts. Followed by why am I posting this on social media? (For me that means Facebook.) Am I sharing something for people to enjoy? Am I sharing something that I think is funny and hope that others will as well? Am I seeking to inflame passion or hostility? Am I trying to illuminate others or provide a different perspective? Am I sharing the truth? What’s my objective?
Ultimately whatever our reasons are for posting something it should come down to taking responsibility for our actions. If someone were to post something about you wouldn’t you want it to be the truth?
Or not?
Slow down! Dangerous curve ahead!
For years now I have seen a daily barrage of false or at the very least questionable information being posted. The internet has been both a boon and a detriment. It was the herald of the information age as well as the age of disinformation.
When it comes to videos of laughing babies or pictures of puppies I’ll share those in a heartbeat. I used to share them without bothering to check until one day an odd picture crossed my eye when I rolled the cursor over the originator of the cute animal post. The link was to an extremist Muslim page where the puppy post was nestled in amongst other really objectionable posts. No, I don’t have anything against Muslims and would have found a Christian extremist site just as objectionable. Since then I’ve learned to be a lot more cautious in what I choose to share.
A lot more!
Eye of the beholder
When I see a post of a meme that is intended to be inflammatory the first thing that I do is ask myself if it might be untruthful. At this point in my life I have been chasing down information to see if it is correct for decades. Usually at first glance I’ll know if it’s more likely that something is false, misleading or a distortion of what is taking place.
My position is that people should NOT pass along incorrect information. I’m not talking about opinion or critical comment here. If a person doesn’t know whether something is true or not then they should NOT share it even if they’re just trying to stir things up. If people want to just inflame and stir things up they should at least stick to the truth.
The truth matters.
Where’s Bob!
On a daily, sometimes hourly, basis I will see people sharing a ‘Lost Person’ post. Those can be checked out fairly quickly. Usually I can do that in 15 seconds or less. (It used to take me 30. Back then I would refer to that as an LT30 check.) There are ways to check a post like that.
First of all is there contact information in the post that actually gets to those involved with the person that is lost? This seems obvious to me but I see posts like these time and again where there isn’t any information provided in the post that will get to the person or persons making the post. “Bob is lost! Help me find Bob! Share this with everyone you know!” If you actually find Bob, and there are plenty of them around, can you get to the person that’s looking for Bob?
Generally, if it’s a serious issue the police will be involved and a report filed. Sometimes law enforcement will seek out the media for more exposure to an event. Official and local media sources are the easiest to check. Click on the link and if the person has been found the link will have been updated. Often the missing person is found within hours. That’s why it’s important to check.
Why do I say it’s important to check? I’m glad you asked.
Because there are loved ones, friends and family involved. Law enforcement resources can be involved as well. Sadly too many times the outcome is not good yet because the ‘Lost Person’ report is still circulating people end up still contacting the grieving parties. Years ago I was tracking down one such post and ended up in England where the parents lived. The post had been going around for months and unfortunately it was one of those cases that ended badly with a dead child. The grieving parents were online begging people to please stop sharing the post. They were weary of telling well-intentioned people that their child was dead. So, it’s also a good idea to check and see how old the post is. If it’s old enough to be moldy.
Don’t share it.
Swimming across the pond!
This brings up another issue. If the person is lost in another country like Australia or England it’s highly unlikely that they will be found in the middle of the United States unless law enforcement has a reason to think that they will be somewhere close to you. Law enforcement does every now and then issue a nationwide alert.
That brings up those sad eyed, disfigured or injured children asking for shares. Oh yes and puppies. These are often coupled with, “I’ll bet that I won’t even get one share.” There’s also the, “If you’re a true Christian and Love Jesus” you’ll share this. Another favorite is the “If you’re my true friend you’ll copy and paste this and share it.” Prayer chains for Billy and on and on. One thing that the vast majority of these have in common is that they’re either clickbait or a source of information for data miners. (Before people lose their minds on me I do share prayer requests that I know are legitimate. If you don’t know if a request is legitimate then don’t share it and a person unknown to you saying that it’s legitimate doesn’t make it so.)
Share this with everybody you know.
Clickbait
Even when it comes to sharing pictures of puppies or babies I have learned to become more circumspect. I won’t share them if they’re possibly malicious clickbait.
Clickbait is usually a post that is designed to generate traffic to a site through clicks and or sharing. It can also be advertising that is usually deceptive or false. At worst it can be used to direct people that click on the link to a site where malware can be downloaded.
I have seen radio stations, bands, entertainers, “public personalities” or the like using clickbait posts to boost traffic to their page. I have also seen extremist’s web sites use posts to glean information about people. In other words clickbait can make a site look a lot more popular than it is thereby increasing the potential ad revenue.
Don’t be a baiter.
Being violated.
Off to another area. As to the posts of disfigured or sick children unless you personally know them and/or that their parents or guardians AND have given the okay to share their picture then you need to stop. People with evil intent will grab up such pictures from the internet to share in order to mine for data. How would you like it if a picture of a now deceased love one was being circulated without your permission? How about having a picture of your child in the hospital being distributed without your permission? Some people prefer to keep their lives private and don’t like other people knowing that they aren’t home and that their house is empty. There are lots of reasons for NOT wanting things shared with the world.
Story time.
This is probably a good time to share a story.
I was checking out a truly extreme post and ended up back at the source.
Get this! The page stated that everything that they posted was pure fiction. They said that they just made up the most outrageous things that they could think of and posted them to see if people would fall for them. People did, hook, line and sinker. Going through their posts was an incredible experience. People would be fighting about whatever story was posted. People would argue with those that made up the story that it was indeed true. There were trolls galore. There were people trolling trolls. There were trolls trolling trolls.
I was so flabbergasted about what I was seeing that I sent a direct message to one of the admins just saying that it was hard to believe what was going on. Yep. All day every day. Here’s the sad part. Some of their fabricated stories ended up being shared with others as the truth and showed up on my timeline to share with people starting arguments anew about whether it was truthful or not.
It was fiction.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/websites-post-fake-satirical-stories/
Pretty shoes!
If you like looking at pretty shoes online get ready to see lots of ads for pretty shoes.
Here recently I have gone through the timelines of some friends. There were several instances where they had shared nothing in their timelines from credible sources. Nothing.
The internet because of its inter-connectivity will try and feed you what you like.
For instance, once I spent some time on religious links, so ads started showing up for church sites. Nothing unusual there. I might get 4 ads in a row for something religious and then an off topic ad like did I want to check out a dating site for large breasted skinny women living in San Diego. Truth. I swear I have no idea on that one.
Algorithms (a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer) have been designed and are being used to target your interests. They will feed you what you want to see.
When I was checking out Nazi/Alt Right/White Nationalists/Confederate/White Supremacists et al sites and pages, for a while I was inundated with links to more of the same. The problem is that the more you frequent any type of site the more traffic to these types of sites is directed your way. It took me awhile to clean up my computer after that sortie. I shan’t do it again. It was ugliness squared.
When I spend time using conservative sites, I receive more points in that direction. The same holds true for liberal, libertarian or anything else that I spend time looking at with odd exceptions thrown into the mix. At this stage I accept that I’m probably a confusing entity to deal with in regards to having my interests catered to.
Keep them guessing.
Checking it out.
I saw a Facebook post the other day that just on the face of it I was 95+ percent sure that it was garbage. For as many years as I have been doing this it’s probably easier for me to spot than some others. This person just happened to be one that usually doesn’t post from a reputable source. Since I knew that I would be writing this I checked it out.
How?
The first thing that I check is the originator of the post. I see what kinds of things that they’ve been posting. Are they a meme farm and all that they post are memes with hardly anything else. That’s a quick scroll.
Then I check their Facebook info. Who is/are their admin/s? Where is/are their admin/s located? In this case there were 2 and both were in the US. However, there was no determined owner of the page.
Then I check and see links that the page posts. In this case the only link was to a site on the web that no longer exists.
Then I checked with reputable media checking sites. In this case it isn’t even considered a media outlet. It’s defunct. Some person or persons just posts the occasional meme there.
In other words this was just a garbage distributing site. From my Facebook friend’s posts I quickly checked out another site that I had checked out previously and already knew that it was un-reputable. Guess what? They had a link to the previous site that I had checked out that was to the site that no longer exists. That’s what these kinds of sites do. They link to each other. They are each other’s sources. They form a circle of made up stuff sourcing each other because if so many outlets believe it then it must be true especially if these are the only kinds of sites that a person uses.
Sing, the circle is unbroken.
Meme me
There are lots of ways to check the validity of a meme or post. There are plenty of fact checking groups that have proved that they are up to the task.
I’m going to use Snopes as an example because they are well known for their fact checking. Snopes has been around since 1994. They are so good that I will see fake information being passed with the claim that the information has already been checked by Snopes. Take the time to check with Snopes. Plus Snopes is good about showing if there is a mixture of truth mixed in with the false claims or if the information is unverifiable or unproven.
Here are a few useful links below. Before I get to this list the illegitimate sites will tell you that all or some of the below are not to be trusted. The sites that I have listed have been checked and rechecked by independent groups as to their validity. Expect the real fake news people to say that none of these are legitimate.
For searches use DuckDuckGo. They don’t track your searches or share your search information
Fact checking website. These people have been around for a long time and have only grown and only gotten better.
Fact checking web site.
Fact checking web site.
Rankings by Individual News Source. They even rank the truthfulness of some individual stories by a news source. They also have a pyramid chart available with the more reliable and least biased towards the top and near the center. I personally liked their old charts better and found them to be less complicated to read and understand. I keep a chart parked on the desktop of my computer for quick reference.
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/rankings-by-individual-news-source/?v=402f03a963ba
Debunking false stories. They have a video of how to spot fake news.
https://www.factcheck.org/fake-news/
A list of fake news sites. This isn’t a comprehensive list. Meaning that there are LOTS more. If your news is coming from one of the places listed your news is fake. Sorry.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/websites-post-fake-satirical-stories/
Media bias fact checking site. You can check out detailed reports about news media sites there. Just type in the name. It’s that easy. There’s a page available providing a list of “media” sites that haven’t been checked yet. There are hundreds. People are at their computers making new “news” sites every day.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
Where’s the money coming from?
Fact checking site.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/
No longer available. Closed down. Fact checking site. If you scroll down they have information
about how you can do a better job of spotting hoaxes and what to do about it.
Fact checking site. Yes it’s the Washington Post and yes they have left bias. They also happen to be excellent at fact checking and are duly recognized for their honesty.