Recently, a story about the Salvation Army circulated on Facebook that said the nonprofit hates the LGBTQ community. It even mentioned that the Salvation Army wants gay people to die. A member of the charity spoke on its behalf, and pictures of posters composed of hate speech coordinated with the article. I read it, I have heard about the Salvation Army’s stance about LGBTQ community in the past, I was horrified and I chose to share it. It was the most shared thing I have ever posted—multiple friends gave in-depth comments and shared it themselves.
I was soon contacted by a friend who is actively involved with the Salvation Army at her university, and she told me by no means was this the majority stance of the charity. The member in question has also since been kicked out of the Salvation Army, and I would have known that had I bothered to research it! We over share and under research.
Over sharing on social media has become an epidemic. We cannot help but snap pictures of the smallest things, update statuses with the most mundane aspects of our daily lives and tweet anything that comes to mind. I am no exception, but I think there are a few rules we could all stand to give more thought. The most important of which is to think before you speak or post.
Twitter is made for constant sharing, so I have less judgment for avid tweeters, but I am amazed at how many spelling and grammar errors there are in something that only allows 140 characters. If you’re in the business of tweeting, status updating or meme creating, for the love of Zuckerberg, read it over before you share it with everyone you know. If you think about 500 of your closest friends reading something you composed, you should look it over once or twice.
The latest issue with over sharing is articles and news from not-so-credible sources, like the article about the Salvation Army. Every week there is a new false alarm in social media because we are not bothering to fact check and also because social media is a massive outlet for pranks. Just in the last few months there was online madness over Bill Nye the Science Guy dying—relax, ’90s kids, he is fine. People thought Jackie Chan died as well, and he is also alive and kicking. J.K. Rowling was rumored to be writing an eighth Harry Potter book. I fell for that one because I will never stop dreaming. A reunion season of “Friends” also made its way into social media, another disappointing lie for me.
We are hitting “share” on Facebook, “retweet” on Twitter and the orange upvote arrow on Reddit without thinking about it or bothering to read the source. If you want to keep your newsfeed reputable, there are a couple things you have to do.
First, pick and choose. Have a specific voice to develop a specialized knowledge. Share what you are passionate about. My social media voice is the voice of a loud feminist, for example.
Google is a magical tool for authenticity. If I see something extreme I want to share with my friends, I try to Google it first. If you search for something outside social media, you can find more reputable articles and websites that can verify or reject what you found on Facebook.
We can avoid falling for these false alarms if we keep a skeptical eye on social media.
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