The Internet is the Wild, Wild, West. Beware of Magic Elixir Salesmen.

As you are forming your opinions on really important things like who to vote for, remember that the internet is the wild west. The “news” sites and facebook groups many of us subscribe to and read are the magical elixir salesmen selling you their snake oil in the form of news and opinions. In the wild west, there is no “FDA” regulating the validity of their claims. Many of these sites only exist to make money off of ad revenue and they have absolutely no requirement to tell the truth.

The more sensational the story or opinion, the more money they make. Further, they play off the confirmation bias of their audience to drive shares, subscribers, and likes which again leads to more ad revenue. You are being provoked purposely and promoting for free.

Confirmation bias- When you have a little baby opinion about something and you want to validate it, you will search for articles, people, memes or whatever you can to confirm your bias and will consider those opinions to have more weight than other opinions on a subject. This is a logical fallacy.

In regards to the memes people are using and sharing to debate and provoke each other on all forms of social media, I would surmise that the majority are either completely false, or distort the truth is some way. ANYONE can make a meme. People are desperate for acknowledgment in the form of fake internet karma points(positive attention), feel an inherent need to provoke others(negative attention) or both. Truth or accuracy may play no factor.

There are widely circulating memes that are supposed to be direct quotes from both Hillary and Trump that were actually never even said. Scary to think that many people’s values and opinions could be based on falsity.