Before You Share that Story on Facebook

“It has to be true, I read it on the internet” is a saying that I first heard in the late 1990’s..  At the time it was referring to email forwards and the scary tales that they included. (Don’t flash your lights at a car without its lights on, a needle that says “welcome to the world of AIDS, etc.)  With the advent of social media and sharing options at the bottom of posts, sharing things that may not be true is easy and the stories can spread like wildfire.

For people who are Christians, we care about truth and telling the truth.  The ninth commandment and the injunctions against gossip and slander make it incumbent upon us to know that what we are sharing is actually true.  (It also makes Christians look like idiots to share things aren’t true.) So here are three places that you should look before you post a link to a story on social media.

Google
I know that this sounds insulting, but google what you are about to share.  You can put it in the form of a question or type in the title of the headline.  While you’re at it, search the name of the website that posted the content you are sharing to see if they are reputable or not.  Do they have a good reputation or are they known for sensationalism?

Snopes.com
This is my first stop when I don’t know if a story is true or not.  Snopes researches popular stories and presents the evidence for and against their veracity.  Each story is given a color ranking with red, green, yellow, and silver to show whether the story is false, true, undermined, or undeterminable.  They also have a ranking for stories that are a mixture of truth and fiction.

Truthorfiction.com
This is a site much like Snopes.  They will share the origin of a story and present the research behind its truthfulness.  I mention this site alongside Snopes because sometimes one will have the story and the other won’t.

Bonus- Is It from The Onion or Larknews?
This is very important to check.  The Onion is a satirical news site.  None of their stories are true, but most of them are hilarious and bizarre.  Larknews does the same thing, except they focus on satire related to Christianity.  I wish that I could count the number of times that I had seen a Larknews story shared as if it were true.  (Actually, I’m glad that I can’t.)

In conclusion, in your rush to make a point, make sure that the story that you are sharing isn’t satire and is actually true.  Even if it is true, make sure that you have the proper motives for sharing.