It’s going to be a long election season. Already, the folks on unsocial media are stretching, bending and breaking the truth about various candidates.
How is a responsible voter to navigate all of the untruths?
My best suggestion is to delete Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and all of the other apps.
I feel dumber every time I look at them, and I have no reason to believe what they say.
Here’s why.
When you’re a journalist, an editor is looking over your shoulder asking questions: Who said that? Where did you get that information? Did you verify that? Where’s the other side of the story?
If you’re asking how I know this, I have been an editor for the better part of 50 years. I can tell you flat-out that the twerps posting garbage on Facebook are just trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
Some ways you can tell that a post is a work of fiction:
Attribution. If there is no attribution, there is no reason to pay any attention to a post. Lately, I’ve seen “stories” critical of various candidates that were “attributed” to the Associated Press, The Washington Post and CNN, among other news outlets. When I checked those websites, no such stories existed. They were made up.
Who said it? Most made-up “stories” have no quotes saying who said what. That means they were made up.
When did it happen? A legitimate news story will have a time reference. Did it happen yesterday or ten years ago? Or did it ever happen?
The same for photos. Photo-editing software is so good that, unless you know what to look for, you cannot tell if a photo was faked. To make things worse, “deep fakes” of videos can make anyone appear to say or do anything. In other words, ignore anything and everything you see online, unless you can verify it.
I don’t like politics. I’ve found that skepticism is warranted whenever a politician opens his or her mouth. They will make promises with the full knowledge that they cannot and will not follow through. Then they will hand off the hot potato they created to someone else and shrug their shoulders and walk away.
But that does not give the trolls on unsocial media license to make stuff up. There’s plenty of factual material that can be used.
For example: Lately it seems the two leading presidential candidates are spending a lot of time trying to keep themselves and their children out of jail. Is this the best we can do? Our country has 326 million people. Are these two guys the best and the brightest? I doubt it. Plus, they’re old enough to be my dad, and I’m older than dirt.
In the meantime, do not trust what you see on unsocial media. Find a source of news that is trustworthy, separates facts from opinions and fiction, and follows the rules of journalism and you’ll be fine.
Carl Sampson is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Stayton.
