Why we shouldn’t share Facebook hoaxes “just in case”

Something we hear frequently, especially from our fellow fact checkers and readers, is that others will frequently share misinformation across Facebook that they already suspect may not be accurate, but that they share it “just in case”.

“Just in case” is probably the most common justification people use when confronted with the fact they’ve shared something that isn’t accurate, and is often followed by some derivative of “but what’s the harm?”

Here we point out why “just in case” isn’t an acceptable justification for sharing misinformation on social media, and demonstrate that real harm can indeed come from sharing such content. Here, we make the case against “just in case”.

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False information has real consequences

It can often be difficult to judge the impact online information we share has in the real world. We share a warning about an alleged predator preying on women in the local area “just in case” it’s a real warning, and a week later an innocent man who matches the description is being harassed or worse. The timeline of social media is littered with cases of what is dubbed “trial by social media” where social media users share unverified warnings only for them to have dramatic offline consequences for those they unfairly targeted.

Just ask the family of Sunil Tripathi, whose photo was shared online by those accusing him of being one of the Boston Bombers. Or the man accused on Facebook of being a sexual predator because a woman mistakenly believed he was taking photos of her children.

Taking “trial by social media” out of the equation, what if a social media post contained a stolen photo of your family member and falsely claimed each time the post was shared, Facebook would donate money to their life saving surgery? That’s what happened to mother Julie Chambers when photos of her child spread online attached to such a claim, made infinitely more tragic since the child had since passed away.

Before hitting share, assume the information you’re reading is false, and then imagine it involves or potentially identifies you or someone you know. And then ask yourself if you’d want others sharing that information without fact checking first.

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“Just in case” doesn’t work if it’s a scam

You wouldn’t follow that suspicious looking man down a dark alley at night after he claimed to be giving away free money. So why do the online equivalent? Even those posts that ask you to share a post to win a free RV are probably looking to scam you, and sharing that post is telling scammers that you’re not experienced enough to determine what is a scam and what is not, and that makes you a potential target. As such, scammers will quickly follow up by asking you to do something like click a link to win, and the “just in case” justification will end up in you giving away all of your personal details to spammers, or worse identity thieves.

It’s worth remembering that sharing content on social media means it ends up in the feeds of your friends. So even if you managed to spot the scam before you did anything that would have any security professional face palming, it doesn’t mean your friends will be so lucky.

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The social media user who called ‘wolf’

Each time we share something online that turns out to be inaccurate, we devalue the information we choose to share in the future, and we diminish our own ability to be an effective purveyor of information for our friends and contacts.

To provide an illustrative example, someone who persistently posts misinformation about a particular subject will very soon be considered a poor source for accurate information, a perception that is unlikely to change even when that user eventually posts content that is accurate.

It is, of course, known as the boy who cried wolf. Eventually we stop listening, or stop trusting. And both the effect and value that correct information can have has been lost because of that. Eventually a timeline, or a feed, becomes full of information that a reader has no obvious reason to take seriously.

We devalue social media and its effectiveness

Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a fantastic way to spread information. Information that can travel across the globe at a mere click of a mouse. But we devalue these fantastic tools each time we choose to share content that isn’t accurate. Not only do we diminish our own ability to spread accurate information as we pointed out above, but from a collective standpoint, we can devalue the effectiveness social media has in general to serve as a great way of spreading genuine information.

As such, it’s incredibly important that we all take responsibility for the information we choose to share with our contacts. Failing to do so risks turning social media into a deluge of words, sentences and links that don’t really mean anything at all.

So if your friends do insist on sharing unverified nonsense “just in case” it’s true, hopefully giving them these points may help.