IT’S been a long year already, and January literally just ended, folks! That’s right. We’re merely one-twelfth of the way through 2020. We’ve got 11 more months to go, yet so much has happened, that is almost too much for us to handle, as a country. There’s the Taal eruption, the 2019-nCoV infection, and recently, the death of NBA sensation and the idol of many Filipinos, Kobe Bryant, to name a few.
What’s the relation of these natural occurrences and tragedies to us, millennials? Well, as a millennial yourself, I bet you know how affected we are with these news. How do I know? Everyone on social media seems they all have something to say. We share posts, we comment, we relay our opinions on the happenings, and it’s a normal thing to do. At least we’re concerned, right?
However, my point here is that we should all be responsible netizens. Before we click “share” or before we post a content, let us make sure that it came from a credible source. Just because it instantly became viral doesn’t mean it’s authentic.
A very timely example was that hours after Bryant died, several Facebook pages shared “actual footage” of the helicopter crash that killed him. The video, taken at a mountainside, showed an aircraft spinning out of control before bursting into flames. There were also onlookers present. The pages wrote in the caption: “RIP Kobe” and “RIP Kobe and Gianna Bryant” when it was in fact from a different helicopter crash in the United Arab Emirates in December 2018. I bet some of us were actually fooled by this misleading video.
Another fake news spread just recently was that a Chinese patient with Coronavirus was confined at the AUF Medical Center. The report was said to be a false claim according to regional health officials.
Moral of the story?
Not everything we see online is true, or as we, millennials call it “legit.”
There’s so much we can do to not become facilitators of fake news. We can always fact-check and validate through credible news sites, TV channels, and reading materials. If it’s too good to be true or exaggerated, it might actually is. That is why it is important for us to be discerning, well-informed and media literate millennials that are able to detect fake news when it is presented to us. Being mindful and smart is our first line of defense against fake news.
Indeed, we have been given this big of an opportunity to belong to the “tech-savvy generation.” Let us use it for the greater good and to make a difference.
Go forth, hoax busters!
Stay active until our next chat!