How I Became the Family’s Fake News Consultant
If you want to know the current state of national affairs, there’s this one but simple thing you can look at to base your opinion on. It’s going to be a holistic assessment. It’s not a news report, it’s not a nationwide survey, and it’s not election results. This very important microcosm of society is…the family group chat.
Yes, that chat box of the family clan on Facebook or Viber! I believe we all have one. That’s a good social barometer of what the nation thinks. The demographics of our family members in those group chats are pretty diverse, from old to young people, the relatives are scattered in different locations, and each has varying religious affiliations and political inclination.
And even if there’s this unspoken rule of veering away from topics about religion or politics within family conversations, sometimes you hear a ping in the chatbox. It was a shared link from your aunt — let’s call her Karen. Out of curiosity, you opened it and your eyes widened.
“That’s obviously fake news, Aunt Karen,” you thought.
Politician X says this, with a made-up quote.
A forwarded or copy-pasted message, god knows who was the source of those ridiculous claims!
Or those pseudo-science videos about the pandemic.
So I was caught in a dilemma, do I call my family out? I am hesitant because this will not be the first time I’ll open up something about politics in the family. The previous one didn’t go well. If I point out they’re wrong, I might risk starting World War III.
But my conscience is telling me, if I let this slide, there are younger members of the family who see such misinformation. And if left unchecked, that will be the prevailing narrative. That will be their version of the truth.
So I did one brave thing and politely explained why the link shared by Karen has false and unverified information and is not safe to be spread publicly. I then inserted evidence to substantiate my counter-claim.
Fortunately, it was well-received. No tension sparked. I guess, if your approach is very delicate, with no intention to ridicule, and if your counter-claims are supported by facts, they will come to their senses.
So much so, all of a sudden, even weeks after that first incident, I am now receiving private messages or being tagged on social posts.
“Hey, son, is this true?”
“What can you say about this? Does it look credible?”
“You think this is fake news? Pretty bizarre for me!"
Initially, one or two messages like this are okay. I am very much willing to accommodate and help build a facts-based communication line for the family. But now I am getting different messages now and then, and sometimes I don’t have the time and energy to respond to all.
It’s as if I became the unofficial fake news consultant or fact-checker of the family. But more than doing a thankless job, what bothers me more is what they’re asking from me does not require specialized skill. It can be done by average people as long as you know what to find in legit news or how to spot red flags for fake news
So instead of giving the answers right away, I started giving thought-provoking questions so that they find the answer themselves.
You know what they say, “Give a man a fish, and they will not consume fake news for a day. But teach a man how to fish, and they will learn how to report that misleading page.” You get the point.
I then made a checklist that I would simply copy-paste as a response to any family inquirers. This was my template reply when they message me. If the answer is yes to all of this, then what they’re asking about is legit news and is good for sharing.
1. Is it recently published?
2. Is it coming from a reputable source of information?
3. Is it under a named author or established news website/page?
4. Do other news sources report on the same thing?
5. Is the information mentioned backed up by evidence?
6. Is there a low chance of it being fabricated or edited?
I still don’t know if they find this seemingly clinical response offputting as if they’re talking to a bot. But there comes a point where you have to rack up their brains and wake them up from a mindless zombie state.
So far, those type of news have lessened in our family group chat, thank god! Or maybe it’s possible that the baby boomers in the family now just don’t share news in our chatbox anymore, because they know I’m there.
Sure, maybe the older generation is going to be a more challenging group to convince and enlighten because they don’t understand technology. And that’s a problem in two ways: first, they don’t know how to utilize it for fact-checking, and second, they don’t understand how technology can easily be used to manufacture fake news.
But even if it’s going to be tiresome and repetitive, I still have to do it. I have to look out for my cousins, nephews, and nieces. They are keener to listen and learn. And we’re the ones who’ll bear the brunt of the negative impact of fake news and misinformation.
So if you have the same problem in your family, keep on fact-checking and share clarificatory posts on your social media, because those Karens will see them. But don’t be too aggressive, mean, or condescending. Sure, politics can be a difficult topic for conversation, but having a civil tone is still possible if all people are on board. It’s only how people in that conversation poorly react that makes it hard.
Remember when I said about family group chat as a small scale model of society at large? Maybe what one does there will have some ramifications to the community. So don’t mute and ignore that chatbox. Civil duty could start there, one chat away!
Andrew Beso is a Manila-based content creator who is exploring different ways of sharing art — whether it be written, spoken, and visualized. Aside from being in Medium, his work can also be seen on Youtube, Instagram, and Tiktok.
He is using his undergraduate and master’s degree in Economics and Political Economy, respectively, in discussing social issues through creative expressions.
