Deep dive: about curiosity and fact-checking

Monika Mani Swiatek
Nov 5 · 6 min read

Internet is a platform where everyone can share their views and comment on what others wrote. But what if some of these things are factually wrong?

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In my 11th post from “My 52 problems series”, I’ll focus on facts…


In a book

Few weeks ago I came across a paragraph in a book which was puzzling me. It was a UX related book. I tried to take a phrase apart and take it back to grasp the logic, but logic was contradictory to what was stated in the previous paragraph.

I’ve found the author on Twitter and send him a message asking if it’s correct as I feel there’s something not ok. At first he said it is.

An hour later he got back and wrote “I checked again and you ARE right” (original quote). He was surprised that he did this mistake. It was a matter of adding “not” in the right place. I was relieved that I’m not losing my skill of logical thinking. Btw a book is really good.

On a social media

Recently I was researching one thing online. There was not much about that on social media (I know!?! it’s unusual, but there’s way more now) but I came across a comment where a person made a strong statement, backing it up with the authority of a professor they heard it from.
The problem was that the statement was different than all I’ve read on the topic.

I put on my investigative hat on.

I opened a new tab to do some extra searching and verify which version is correct. After few minutes, I’ve found only articles describing things in a way I knew what automatically contradicted what the person stated (it was about historical facts in the context of the language so there was not much to challenge, just to lookup).

A person who gave a statement with a factual error was a student who seemed to be confident with the level of their knowledge. They weren’t a troll or a radical person, who I do not interact with online. It was someone who got things wrong.

I’m not an individual who likes to point out peoples mistakes but I can’t ignore things which are factually incorrect. The internet has the power to spread and amplify various statements and I can't pass by the statement which is factually wrong and others can pass it on. I also believed that that person didn't have bad intention just had a bad teacher and haven't awakened yet the curiosity which is filling the mind of every student.

I didn't feel comfortable saying they were wrong, but I hoped that by doing that I’ll help them to be more open and change the approach towards acquiring knowledge to shift to a more active way not than just by passive listening.

Quite often on social media people are constantly attacking each other and it’s difficult to point out an error in a kind way which won’t nudge the anger switch button. This person had private messages disabled so I decided to write a comment, neutral one with a link to a respectable source with correct information.

The next day there was a response. They were surprised that their information was incorrect but explained that it’s the second year of uni and they didn't talk about this topic deeply yet and their statement reflected what the professor told them recently. They said that next time they’ll be verifying things they want to share.

We all have the right to be wrong

In my opinion, we shall be responsible for what we write, how we comment and what we share. Even if we’re not signing it with our own names. This what we write is this who we are. The Internet can’t be only a medium used to insult each other, it may also be a great mine of knowledge which we can share or explore. We just need to know how to use it well.

I like to be proved wrong. I’m a UX-er and it’s part of my job to verify if things I design/assume are right or wrong and why. In the beginning, it was difficult to put my work in front of others and see what went well and where I was mistaken. We are precious about both, things we work on and things we say publically. Acknowledging failure or mistake is something we can learn and learn from.
I also like to challenge and broaden my knowledge and assumptions whenever there’s an opportunity.

How can we learn more?

Internet is a great source of knowledge where we can find amazing stuff. We just need to be brave and dig through mass of junk or subscribe to respectable or/and interesting newsletters and discover.

We’ve never had so easy access to such a powerful fact-checking tool as we have now. But no one can expect we’ll be sitting and researching things online all the time to know things for future discussions, right?
This is why I love to read non-fiction books, especially recent written by female authors as they want to challenge the current status quo. It’s a source of great information written with transparency and pointing to sources which can help to dive deeper into the topic.

One of such eyeopening book was “Inferior” by Angela Scaini where the author described how during recent centuries science which supposes to be objective was biased against women. In the book, you can come across many examples which may be truly shocking (for me it was the correspondence between Darwin and Caroline Kennard, where she tried to find about Darwin’ thinking behind his sexist views which affected womens right for decades. (More about the book and this story you can find in a great article “Darwin Was Sexist, and So Are Many Modern Scientists

Sometimes I go to a local book club meetings where I can listen to interesting stuff which pushes me to jump and dive deeper online to reveal more about the topic.
A month ago I found out that the first and only one available for many years English version of Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex,” was brutally edited by the translator H.M. Parshley (a zoologist!) who cut quite a lot (of controversial content) from the original (without mentioning it). The second edition published almost 60 ! years later showed de Beauvoir’s philosophy in its full spectrum without filtering it through the stereotypical “male gaze” and censorship.

There are quite a few academic papers discussing this case and it’s quite an exciting read. You can easily find it online.

Evidence-based approach

At uni I wasn’t happy with hours of philosophy and logic I had to go through, I thought it’s irrelevant, but now I think these were two of most important elements of my education which gave me the ability to think truly.

I like to read opinion pieces in magazines to see how people think and how they got to such conclusions, this observation helps me to read more consciously and be a better writer.

This is why when I’m posting things on social media I remember to verify the source and if I’m posting an opinion I’ll try to have evidence backing up my way of thinking so it’s not out of the blue.
I believe that in the era of fake news and various types of manipulation this is the approach which will help us to stay well informed and share good quality knowledge.


The truth is that almost every post from my 52 problems series is related to a book I’ve read or I’m reading (I’m a real book worm). My curiosity takes me further to the internet to review what else I can find out about the topic and I fell in this research rage which takes me to places…
In the end, writing a post I learn a lot and I’m happy to share my newly acquired knowledge with others.

Please let me know if you’ve read any interesting book or article recently!

Monika Mani Swiatek

Written by

Trying to decide if I should be a warning or an example to others today... Feminist, sceptic, alleged stoic. Passionately curious UXer.

My 52 problems

This is my answer to a #Write52 initiative which main aim is to write one blog post every week for a year. The theme of my 52 stories is the “Impact of modern technology on our lives”.

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