Fake Social Media News Sites and Posts
Competing with Social Media…
Fake social media news sites and posts are proliferating like bunny rabbits. Many are disseminating distorted information and misinformation daily all over the internet…So news consumers beware!
Over 2.7 million blog posts are published every day and 1 billion websites currently exist on the internet. Talk about information overload!
In addition, an estimated 62% of Americans get their news from social media. And 24% rely on family and friends for news updates.
If you think about it, anybody can publish a news item and make it look official. (see video below)
Moreover, most readers of social media don’t necessarily check the origins of their news sources.
In most cases, they don’t even think about checking their sources. Nor have they been actually trained to do so. Not in schools, colleges, universities, or even in the workplace.
We are living in the Information Age, where information dominates and very few validate.
Only professional librarians think consistently about validating their information resources, regardless of origin.
Fake Social Media News Advice – ”Triple check before you share.”
As the father of our Constitution, James Madison, once observed, “a well instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”
We need to develop a crap detector mentality whenever we engage with any type of news source, be it the Web, TV, radio, newspapers, even family and friends.
Our constant transitioning into an engaging and thriving information society demands it.
Relying solely on social media information sources alone as de facto “truth” tellers is very dangerous, particularly for our survival as a democratic republic.
As consumers of news, we have a moral and civic responsibility to validate any type of news sources impacting how we live, work, vote, and play as Americans.
Our quality of life, our ability to compete effectively in this wild and crazy diverse global society depends on it.
Brian Stelter, Senior Media Correspondent and Host of Reliable Sources for CNN, offers critical insight into adopting a “crap detector” perspective…Whenever you read and/or engage with social media news sites like Facebook, for example…”Triple check before you share.”
