Every single day I see tons of misinformation and fake news shared on social media by people who are buying into the false narrative coming from an unreliable source. The biggest problem with having media anytime anywhere is information has become easy to manipulate. First of all I would encourage everyone to really analyze their news and reflect on if an article is sharing information or an opinion piece. If it is anything other than a news article I would recommend not sharing the article as a truth but rather an opinion of someone who may or may not have any insight on the topic at hand. For example, my husband is a doctor and he constantly sees facebook articles being shared about opinions on vaccines. They may look like real news articles but when you open them they are really opinions with sources from non scientific journals. These articles are the perfect example of something that uses uneducated opinions that are spread as truths to scare others. I would also advice people not to share news they find with with no creditable sources. When we share news with no source we are backing a concept that could not hold up in a real news room.
We find things online and share them with less creditability because it is all behind screen. A good rule of thumb would be if you would not print this article off and hand it out to people in person fully prepared to have an educated conversation about the topic maybe sharing it online is not for you. There is power behind what we share online and with the huge crisis of false information being shared we all have a responsibility to be more aware of what we are putting our name behind by sharing opinions and so called facts on our own social media. If we are not careful we can really be hurting society not to mention those who work endlessly to bring true journalism. We also have to keep in mind that there are many people who use social media who lived most of their life without it. Older generations may find it harder to detect false information and we should be of aid to them for their own benefit. if you are going to correct someone on the news they share we can do it in a respectful way that helps the user better understand how to spot false information in a world that might be different than the one they grew up in.
