{"id":388,"date":"2016-09-28T02:39:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T09:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=388"},"modified":"2016-09-28T08:12:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T15:12:25","slug":"dont-believe-everything-read-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t believe everything you read on Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"what-you-do\"<\/a>About a week ago a good friend of mine who is an \u2018activist\u2019 shared a news story with her Facebook friends.\u00a0 She was absolutely disgusted by what she had read in the post that had been sent to her, and she wanted all of her social media friends to “spring into action” in response to this horrific story.\u00a0\u00a0 And it was a horrific story.\u00a0\u00a0 I started to read it and it just kept getting worse and worse.\u00a0 It purported to be a news story from a print media publication in the eastern US.\u00a0\u00a0 The reporter seemed like a real reporter, the story was written in the style of a newspaper story.<\/p>\n

According to the story, a young black woman in a major US city had been shot and killed by a white police officer because she was breast feeding her infant child in public.\u00a0 The story talked in great detail about the arrival of the police officer, the conversation between him and the citizen, how it escalated, how the infant was dropped to the ground striking its head on the sidewalk and received a terrible head injury.\u00a0 It described how the woman tried to leave and was shot in the back by the officer.\u00a0\u00a0 It even went on to have an interview with the Police Chief who was quoted as saying \u201cif you walk away from us when we are talking to you, you have to expect these consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

No wonder my friend was mad.\u00a0 This was terrible.\u00a0\u00a0 Who wouldn’t react strongly to a story like this?\u00a0 However…it was all a hoax.\u00a0 A bad one.<\/p>\n

As I read the story I knew there was something very wrong with it.\u00a0 I knew that if something like this had actually happened I would have heard about it in the mainstream media as well.\u00a0 Such an event was beyond the pale in any civilized country, and my reaction was this horrific thing could not have happened.<\/p>\n

As a part of my consulting and social media management role, I see and read a huge amount of social media \u2018news\u2019. When horrific things happen you do not expect to see just one very well-formatted story; you expect to see multiple tweets and posts.\u00a0 Information comes in and is often relayed instantly.\u00a0 Unfortunately, in this rush to get the news out, mistakes are often made.\u00a0 Not acceptable, but it is to be expected.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This story, however was far too smooth, so I started to check my sources.\u00a0\u00a0 As expected, the story was a fake.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, it was such a \u2018good\u2019 fake that it defeated itself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It wasn’t long before the comments on my friend\u2019s post began to come in telling her that it was a fake, a hoax.\u00a0\u00a0 Within about 12 hours the post was removed.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of things that really bother me about this story.\u00a0 First, I have to wonder about the motive of the originator of this hoax.\u00a0 It was not funny.\u00a0 It was not some crazy conspiracy theory.\u00a0\u00a0 The post came at a time when a major US city was in the midst of riots. The Black Lives Matter movement was in full swing.\u00a0 One rioter had actually been killed (by another rioter), all allegedly triggered by the shooting of an \u2018unarmed\u2019 black man by a police officer.\u00a0 No matter that the police officer was black, no matter that the man actually had a gun, wore it in a concealed ankle holster, the protests were in full swing.\u00a0\u00a0 Add a hoax story like this to the mix and what do you expect but anarchy and more violence?\u00a0 I shudder to think that, likely, this was the purpose of this post.\u00a0 I can only hope that the authorities have found the originator of this malicious post and charged him\/her with a very serious crime.<\/p>\n

My second concern is the way this story spread.\u00a0 Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to create not only the story but also the context through which it was posted.\u00a0\u00a0 My friend received it, originally, from another activist who seems, himself, to be the source of many \u2018activist\u2019 type posts.\u00a0 I have to wonder how many of those other posts are also inaccurate or fake \u2013 and that is the sad consequence of being the unsuspecting believer of such trash:\u00a0 your own credibility is then questioned.\u00a0 When we jump to re-post and re-tweet such stories, unwittingly or not, to what extent are we complicit in the malice that the originator intended?\u00a0 Where and when does personal responsibility come in to play for the stuff we attach our names to?<\/p>\n

How do you protect yourself from making such a mistake when you share social media stories?\u00a0 There are a few simple rules:<\/p>\n