(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
https://duckduckgo.com/
Fact checking website. These people
have been around for a long time and have only grown and only gotten better.
https://www.snopes.com/
Fact checking web site.
https://www.factcheck.org/
Fact checking web site.
https://checkyourfact.com/
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?
https://www.opensecrets.org/
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.
https://www.hoax-slayer.com/
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.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/
