Your Facebook "Newsfeed" is not actually News

Five years ago my sister dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of Facebook. I had resisted participating in social media before that because I thought it was a complete waste of time and energy and, mostly because I am a contrarian and I liked not following the crowd. She convinced me it was a fun way to see current pictures of my grandkids and keep distant friendships alive; which made it only a partial waste of time and energy.

Since that fateful day in 2011 I have become a red-eyed, distracted multi-device using obedient sheep in the Facebook flock. I have found and spoken to high school friends, old Navy buddies, long lost cousins and all manner of former co-workers, bosses and people I used to know. Heck, I’ve even become friends with friends of people I used to know.

I confess that my participation has grown well beyond grandkid pictures and finding old shipmates. I’ve posted pictures of my dinner, random thoughts, song lyrics that seemed deep or relevant at the moment and even, I’m ashamed to admit, selfies.

Facebook has become a guilty pleasure over the years but lately it’s also become a great source of irritation. Too often, as I scroll through my newsfeed looking for funny memes (which have replace the funny pages for me) or some new grandkid pictures, I’m inundated with those outrageous official looking headlines. I used to actually stop and read the stories because if there was “Absolute proof that Obama was a puppet of militant Islamic aliens from outer space!!!!” I would want to know about that.

That is how I learned some very valuable lessons about stuff you read on the Internet. First, they can say anything they want and don’t have to prove a freakin’ thing (much like this blog), next, most of it is something called click bait and, according to the guy with the weird hair from the History Channel, the aliens overlords who control Obama predate Islam so that headline was just ridiculous.

It turns out that click bait is when a sponsored website makes some outrageous claim just so some schmuck like me will click onto their site to read the story which gets them more advertising revenue. Other times political groups take a small shred of fact, blow it way out of proportion to get more people to read their opinions which are rarely supported by fact.

Sadly, too many of us within the mindless Facebook flock never bother to click on the site or read the story at all. We think, “What? Isis wants to kill American puppies? That’s outrageous, I’d better share this!” I wish I was making that up but last month a website actually published that story which was complete horse crap. One can only guess that they were just immature pranksters or, worse, cat people.

Here are a few quick examples of dubious headlines I personally saw on Facebook recently:

-       An Alaskan Judge calls on US Marshalls and FBI to arrest the President and all of Congress. Not a bad idea but it didn’t happen.

-       A Navy Admiral was relieved of his command for exposing a real estate transaction by the President in Dubai. He was relieved of command but nothing else in that story was remotely true.

-       Dog badly burned while rescuing his family from a deadly house fire! The picture was actually a dog with a piece of lunch meat on his face.

-       Donald Trump said Republicans were stupid.  He’s pretty much called everyone else stupid, but he never said that.

-       It’s illegal to quote the Bible in Cincinnati; not true, but apparently it is true that you can’t win a playoff game in Cincinnati.

-       General Chuck Yeager endorses Trump for president; that didn’t happen, nor did he say, “Donald Trump, never heard of her.”

I have fallen for a few of these myself. I believed and shared a derogatory story about the governor of Idaho. As a former Idaho resident I have a long-standing belief that Idaho’s Governor Butch Otter is a complete douchebag but in fairness, the story I shared about him on Facebook wasn’t true and I shared it and commented without checking the facts.

I shared another Facebook story about an old birdwatcher beating up one of those wannabe militia types in Oregon. According to the story a senior citizen on his morning bird watching stroll was challenged by one of the Y’all Qaida whackos and put the “foul smelling” young fellow down with an old high school wrestling move. The story was so funny that I wanted it to be true but it was total bullshit.

The truth is that it only took me a few minutes of very easy research to debunk all of the stories that had been stated as fact in a headline posted on Facebook. I have many friends who, like me, see a headline they want to believe on Facebook and just forward them without checking their veracity. It’s the nature of the Facebook flock.

It turns out that my sister was right after all; Facebook is good for seeing pictures of grandkids and old friends but, like this blog, it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Don’t let that discourage you from using Facebook every Friday to link to my blog, look a family photos or laugh at a funny meme or two. Like I said, when used correctly Facebook is only a partial waste of time and energy!