These ads, often disguised as actual fake news articles — in the sense that the information was made up and does not corroborate with reality, unlike what our sponge-brain-in-chief calls fake, news he disagrees with — are often written with click-bait headlines and enticing themes for the target group. Facebook has even recently bought ads on
Fake news. Click-bait headers. Lists of things you already know — kind of like the header on this article. Congratulations. If you are reading this sentence, you're part of the problem (or you are a self-deprecating internet user reading this on a Palm Pilot).
We've been over this before, yet it still seems to be getting worse — stop relying on Facebook for your news. You got got, now stop it.
Maybe you are one of the lucky few who can tell the difference between fake news, errors in reporting and disparaging content. Perhaps you know what satire is, perhaps you know how to look for corrections and a secondary source for your news. Congrats, you are one in a million. You are a beautiful butterfly and everyone subconsciously wishes they could drink your aura like an energy drink. Sadly, it just doesn't work that way as the populace would rather squat inside the empty flaming dumpster that is social media and wait for the trash to be tossed into their faces.
So without re-hashing the history of why Facebook is not a news site, but rather a familial sharing of baby pictures and meme repository, I do have a few simple tips to help you avoid fake news. While the header for this article might have been written to prove a point, there is no harm in reading on and discovering some hard truths about yourself. One of the most profound things we can do in life is discover ourselves through self-reflection while suppressing the constant urge to smash our phones into our teeth.
Five ways to stop getting mentally swindled by fake news:
Countdown style.
5. Never click on anything ever. Seriously. Don't ever click on anything. Wait until the end of the day, sit down with your parents and watch the nightly news. If it's not important enough to make the nightly news, then it didn't happen. You're going to give yourself an aneurysm if you don't stop clicking things. It's all circular.
4. Use the internet for fun. With the death of AIM we are struck with internet nostalgia. Remember using the internet for (not just trolling chat rooms) fun? Remember fun? That warm feeling of skillful distraction. Remember the hours you spent playing Counter-Strike? Or the days lost to World of Warcraft? What happened to those days? I'd rather get nuclear annihilated while wasting punks on the updated 'Dust 2' map than staring into Twitter.
3. Trust no-one. If your friend shares a post with the caption "I'm not sure about this but seems legit" it's one hundred percent absolute crap. Your friends and family and acquaintances on Facebook can't tell the difference between fake news, real news and less-than-subtle Russian propaganda ads posing as news articles. They share memes with quotes attributed to the wrong face on the meme. They constantly share those terrible copy-paste statuses. They are the same people who spent the 90s forwarding emails that promised a great fortune the more people you forwarded the email to. They cannot be trusted.
2. Turn off notifications. You don't have to track every inane comment on that Facebook post you shared about the secret plot by aliens to command our dairy industry and brainwash us through milk. You can tweet something witty and walk away, not checking every like while you sit at a traffic light. You can leave those Reddit notifications for later, when you are sitting on the toilet. Oh, you got 142 likes on your comment on that news story post on a content farm page? You're internet famous now.
1. Go play outside. That's it. Forget all the previous advice. Go play outside. Facebook might go down, but you won't notice, you'll be outside. You'll feel great. I mean, before global warming kills us all. But until then, go outside and paint a picture of the kids sitting around on the curb, their bikes in a pile and their noses in their phones. Try to resist the urge to lecture the next generation about the dangers of fake news. Because as this last election season proved, we're already doomed.
