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How to Have Discernment in the Age of Misinformation

Let’s Be Vigilant

Heidy De La Cruz
Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs

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Photo by Jorge Franganillo on Unsplash

This past week, with the devastation of the fires in Los Angeles, it seems like the internet has gone even wilder than it’s been before with all the reporting of what caused the fires, who’s at fault for the fires, and what went wrong as the fires broke out. There have been contradicting stories, such as California’s leaders not doing anything to prevent these fires, the fire hydrates running out of water, and the fire department suffering budget cuts, which hurt their ability to fight the fires. Then a few hours later there are stories that say the complete opposite — like there are satellites orbits to help find fires as soon as they start, the fire hydrates didn’t run out of water, and that the budget cuts aren’t true. And depending on how your algorithm is set up (which you actually create your own algorithm) will depend on which story you see.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again — a story will break out, everyone is sharing the post or video, and then a few days later another story comes out showing that the first story wasn’t true or was partially true. In the past few years misinformation has increased on social media with few ways of stopping it, until people develop critical thinking skills to discern posts that aren’t true.

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