Read before you Share

Here’s a random thought, how about we all read a full article before we share it to our friends? – simple enough yeah? In reality, statistics show that:

59 Percent Of You Will Share an Article without even Reading It

Why you ask? First, the human attention span is getting shorter everyday- why else are we so attracted to GIFs and MEMES?

Second, we are lazy (to put it bluntly). It requires time and effort to read an article.

Third, some headlines are just too intriguingly funny, weird, touching or interesting not to share right away. In fact, we love the attention from friends and social media when we share an article and the ‘fake’ reputation that we read.  It’s no wonder that the strength and popularity of a piece sometimes comes down to the strength of its headline.

But do we really want to become a generation of lazy, manipulated, misinformed users? 

In the war against fake news, we’ve already tried multiple solutions.

1. we’ve used algorithms by digitally identifying false information and validating information- but, how reliable is this? Can machines differentiate humoristic or sarcasm or even bias?
2. Our friend Facebook has actively installed tools to prevent misleading/spam posts. They have provided us options to hide content with our own classifications of what is false. – but, have any of you used these tools yet?
3. Even Governments have been active, countries such as Malaysia have turned to legislation and laws to combat fake news. However , censorship and freedom of speech concerns render the laws ineffective and counterproductive as debates of whether fake news should be considered ‘illegal’ continue

The real solution lies in you

We can’t escape from bias but we can’t escape from facts either. Think twice before you share the next thing you read. 

Cecilia