WORTHLESS OPINIONS ABOUND – FACT-CHECKING SITES TO THE RESCUE

https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/chapter/fact-checking-sites/

 

When reading the social media memes that hundreds of Facebook friends share,  it’s apparent they’re gleaning them from sources that are frequently fact-scarce or fact-free, agenda-pushing spin zones.

 

Here are just a few of the last year’s and this year’s doozies to date:

 

Nancy Pelosi violated a statute when she tore up her copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech (FALSE)

Viral photo shows Adam Schiff with whistle-blower (FALSE)

The corona virus was sent by a “spy” from Canada (FALSE)

Pelosi’s impeachment pens are 18-karat gold (FALSE)

Climate change isn’t responsible for Australia’s fires (FALSE)

Robert S. Mueller “can’t provide evidence that his probe (of Trump) reached a conclusion.” (FALSE.)

The U.S. Constitution confers rights only to citizens (FALSE)

 

Here’s a link to the most frequently shared bogus memes in 2019, for anyone who shares memes without checking them for their truthfulness: https://www.factcheck.org/issue/memes/page/3/

 

(You might also want to check out the link above, “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”)

 

So I think this blog post is important, because it’s instructional.

 

It’s hard to argue with someone who is using “alternate facts” they’ve received — that is, misinformation (accidentally false information) or disinformation (outright lies created to keep people drinking their kool-aid) because, in most cases, low-information voters don’t realize they’re spreading false information; they express full confidence in the sources of their information.

 

In other cases, they do know it (they’ve been shown many instances where their sources have lied to them), but it doesn’t bother them because it serves their need to help their sources misinform and mislead.

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-most-and-the-least-trusted-news-sources-in-the-us-2017-08-03

 

I’ve been known to share an untrue meme, but as soon as I’m shown where it veers from the facts, I delete it or add my new-found knowledge in a comment so those who shared it can also share the correction. It happens.

 

When we don’t know something is bogus, we unwittingly defraud not just ourselves in the voting booth, but other people, too.

What chaps my hide is when someone willfully shares a false narrative to score political or ideological points, is shown where it diverges from reality, and then deletes the comment that points to the facts of the matter. That’s willful spreading of a lie, and it has no place in the marketplace of public discourse or on Facebook pages without the correction that accompanies it.

 

People vote  depending in the information they receive and believe… or want to believe 

 

Unfortunately, far too many people think that if they see something on TV, hear it on the radio, or see it written in some seemingly reputable form somewhere else, it’s the gospel truth.

 

Also unfortunately, opinions are often based on information gleaned from someone deemed “a wiser source” than we are. And these sages seem so much the wiser when they’re aligned with our political viewpoint (which, too, is frequently ill-begotten as the result of mirroring our parents’ belief systems while we’re young and impressionable, or as the result of widespread false narratives and outright lies) and bigotries (always ill-begotten in matters of race, sex, gender, immigration, white supremacy, nationalism … and the list goes on).

 

To quote a curmudgeonly commentator,

“Opinions are like ass holes–everybody has one.”

(“You’re entitled to your opinion, but not to clearly disproved lies.”)

 

The health and vitality of our nation and the world depend on a well-informed citizenry. When we don’t fact-check what we hear and share before we share it, or when we don’t correct it when we’re shown where we’ve been misled, we’re walking on the flag, disrespecting our neighbors who can and do separate the wheat from the chaff by fact-checking, and adding to the mean-spirited discourse that has become so much a feature (not a bug) of too many of our online relationships.

 

It’s time to dial back the demonization of other citizens and start looking at the facts that are readily at our fingertips for those willing to take 30 seconds to dig a little deeper…