I don’t trust you

By Tracee Aliotti

I don’t trust you.

Okay — I’m being dramatic to get your attention. It’s not that I don’t trust YOU, but I’m so distrusting of anything shared on social media that I fact check darn near everything. I find these two questions worth asking — who pays? Who wins?

  1. Who pays for this message?
  2. Who wins if I share it?

When it comes to high stakes topics about our health, safety, freedom, and human rights — blindly sharing content (like articles and memes) without doing due diligence is at best stupid and at worst dangerous.

Actually — I want to say that differently. Here is what is in my heart. Please take the time to reasonably know and understand what you are sharing. Doing so is both loving and responsible.

I find these non-partisan fact checking sites super helpful in my efforts to discern truth over propaganda:

And, I guess one more thing — do you really need to share whatever “it” is anyway? Will it add value? Will it have positive impact on hearts and minds? Even if you don’t know the endgame of the original publisher, maybe take a beat and ask, “what’s mine?” You’re taking the time to share it — what do you want out of it?

Let’s do all that we can to help stop the spread of misinformation and hate.