We’re witnessing one of the more hideous and frightening aspects of the social media craze.
Fake news, man.
It’s this phenomenon we used to call “propaganda.” Internet trolls sit around the house and ponder ways to put out patently false stories — often involving celebrities/public figures/elected officials — and then watch the world react accordingly.
I’m not entirely certainĀ if it’s a right-wing craze or a left-wing craze. I guess I’ll settle on the righty angle, given that’s what we hear about mostly.
Whatever the tilt of those who put this crap out there, it’s driving me to the brink of insanity.
Texas Tribune recently did a study of an elected official, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, and discovered that he’s become a big purveyor of fake news. He and/or his campaign staff puts these liesĀ out there and, I reckon, laugh until their guts hurt as people react to it.
The Republican official’s response is equally “hilarious.” He says he’s not a “news source.” No s***, Sid! Still, someone is sending this crap into cyberspace and the worst of it is that people are buying it!
Didn’t someone recently put out aĀ lie about Hillary Clinton being involved in a child porn ring or some such horse crap? And didn’t that provoke a violent reaction?
I used to tell people who would submit letters to the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years until 2012, that they need to take care about what they read on the Internet. They would insist their information was “true, because I read it on the Internet.” My response usually was that they should believe only about 1 percent of what they read on the ‘Net and then check out the source of the information before passing it on.
Now, with this epidemic of “fake news,” I reckon the reliability percentage has plummeted even farther.
It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.
I’m longing for a simpler time when we recognized fake news when it appeared on those supermarket tabloid headlines — my all-time favorite of which was, “Chocoholic Mom Gives Birth to Super-Coated Baby!”
Ah … those were the days.