Sharing is Caring

Facebook is a place where people can share their thoughts, memories, and anything else they come across that is deemed worthy of being appreciated by others. As I scroll through, I see numerous cat videos, a few personality quizzes that determine what celebrity you really look like, and large clumps of Trump opinions.

Whatever is shared, it is done so because the sharer is trying to achieve something, whether or not if it was their intent. Sometimes this is because they simply wish for their friends to have a good laugh, but often it is because they feel that they have a duty to inform others of some ground-breaking discovery, without regard to the reliability of the source. This results in an inconsistency in the validity in what circulates on social media, to no fault of the susceptible sharer. Grammatically seductive headlines, or as Nathaniel Barr puts it, “[p]suedo profound bullshit,” are used very commonly by sources that disguise themselves as publications but lack concern for morality. These hook eager readers into clicking on an article that is littered with advertisements and seems to lack any concern for providing the reader with a true account of what has happened, as long as the reader is genuinely shocked.

The outcome of this is a timeline full of stories that look interesting, however, aren’t necessarily true. Before we go blaming the corporations that produce the content, it might be wise to consider who will unknowingly share articles without regard for its credibility.

Studies have shown that our innocent perpetrators are religious, or believe in unnatural and inexplicable occurrences, or even rely on alternative medicines rather than Western practices. A vast number of people who share without fact-checking, however, are more intuitive and less analytical.

The effect of this unreliability of stories on social media is often harmless, however, it has the potential to cause some serious damage to relationships (or lack thereof) between the sharer and the scroller. Many people believe that healthy relationships avoid topics surrounding religion, money, and politics. I had the misfortune of learning this lesson the hard way last November when discussing the Canadian election with a group of friends, and we discovered that everyone voted for the same party except one. People seem to forget about this social convention when participating in social media.

Debates with the potential to break friendships that were once avoided are now fully embraced, but with a twist. Without the intimidation of face-to-face confrontation, controversial material (valid or not) is shared without discretion. This could be because people don’t feel like they’re actually addressing anyone in particular; and while they are correct in the sense that they aren’t targeting a specific person, their audience is made up of friends, and depending on privacy settings, the sharer’s friends are the only ones who will be reading this content.

This is where inconsistencies in the validity of content can be dangerous.

False claims and stories aren’t harmful on their own; their intended impact takes shape only when gullible readers believe the bullshit and share it. As the bullshit circulates, it is able to reach more gullible readers, resulting in a rumour turning into an internationally understood fact.

The notion saying you should “never believe what you read online” has for some reason been forgotten while more and more people become connected through social media. There’s a difference between a credible source, and one that’s not. While the numerous platforms that host the exchange of stories should step in and help make this distinction clear, the responsibility ultimately lies upon the alleged sharer to ensure the validity of what they share. While it’s a journalist’s job to validate their mother’s claim when she says: “I love you”, it’s a sharer’s responsibility to find out if Donald Trump is right when he said that Muslim’s in New Jersey celebrated during the attacks of 9/11.