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Three simple rules for sharing
Social media is often filled with memes and information that are just flat-out incorrect. Most of it comes from one type of sharing: “ That fits my viewpoint, so I’ll pass it along! “. Truth becomes secondary to speed.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t share things that you agree with, but taking a moment to verify that accuracy of them can be helpful. Manu Moreale has three rules for sharing anything, and I think they’re a good place for most people to start.
1. Read or watch the entire thing before sharing it
I’ve seen this a few times, where someone will leave a comment on an article that they clearly didn’t take the time to read. NPR used that to their advantage a few years ago with a brilliant prank that got people to leave lots of comments about an article that didn’t even exist.
Another good example was a Facebook post I published earlier this year; the first response from “Bill” was very passionate, but confusing, and he admitted to just looking at the title and going for it.
Twitter has even done experiments to try to force users to read a story before passing it along, though with rather disappointing results.
