Success

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child , a garden patch, or a redeemed condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Bust Fake News

How to fight the fake news epidemic? I simply do a Google search (and have been doing so since pre-WhatsApp/Facebook days, when 'fake news' consisted of email forwards of five-headed snakes and baby-shaped vegetables, ironically from people who rant against fake news now, not realising that they helped the fake news juggernaut along by letting creators test the limits of gulibility of recipients!) - some sites like HoaxSlayer.comSnopes.com and UrbanLegends.com (besides some news-focused sites like scroll.in) are reliable fake news busters.

Apparently, some (most?!) 'well meaning' people who receive fake news forwards are too lazy to check, and harm their own credibility (besides unintentionally causing real harm, even deaths!) by forwarding fake news to their own contacts/groups.😠

Guys, if you can't do a double check, at least be responsible enough NOT to forward what you haven't verified, instead of acting like children given possibly dangerous toys and opting to use these without a care. (And I'm talking only of 'well meaning' but gullible people who spread fake news unintentionally, not the really culpable ones who create and/or forward such trash willingly, in support of a certain ideology or thought - such acts are doubtless criminal and need to be acted against severely.)