The Internet is a wonderful thing. As little as 20 years ago, most people had to get their news from one or two local newspapers or three television news shows. Today, from newspaper websites to CNN.com, to social media and Twitter links, there is a host of news and information you can find at any time.
There’s just one problem – some of the time, the information you find isn’t true.
That’s why you have to double and even triple check every bit of information you find online, even if it is from a generally trustworthy source.
Let me give you an example. A little over a year ago, The Washington Post published an article saying that the rap group Public Enemy had written a song saying the 9/11 terrorist attack was a “joke”.
Of course, they hadn’t done any such thing. What they had done was to release a song in 1990 – 11 years before 9/11/01 – saying that the 911 emergency response system in the poorer neighborhoods of many major cities is a joke.
Yet, many people to this day believe that Public Enemy had made fun of the tragic events of 9/11, and it has severely damaged their reputation.
Here’s another example. The Onion is a satiric online newspaper. It states in bold letters on its home page that their stories are jokes and, often quite simply, not true. Yet, last month when they did a story saying that Planned Parenthood wanted to build an $8 billion “abortion theme park” and shopping mall, hundreds of thousands of people believed them.
People posted the story as a fact on their Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds. Planned Parenthood started getting angry phone calls and letters – all because people didn’t bother to check the story out and realize it was satire.
The only good that came out of this is that it did spark some bright people to launch the site Literally Unbelievable, which now collects amusing examples of people who believe stories published in The Onion.
Perhaps the most disturbing recent example of “fake news” that some people believed occurred earlier this month. On July 4th, the Twitter feed of Fox News was hacked and began posting tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated.
Obviously, for a period of time, people were retweeting the “news” and devastated that a young president had been gunned down. If, however, they had simply checked any other news source, they would have discovered fairly quickly that the tweets were a hoax.
These are just a few examples of “news” that people have believed simply because they read it online. What they all have in common is they prove that while there is a lot of information available online about nearly any subject, not all of it is true.
Before you make a decision based on any news item, do a little research. It could save you from making a costly mistake based on false information.
lol i wish i read this 2 weeks ago.. learnt my lesson the hard way haha