How Do You Know What To Believe?

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This post picks up where the last post stopped!

Rule #5 – Don’t rush to broadcast! If you want to be a trustworthy source of information on the Internet, this should be your priority rule. Often times, misinformation spreads over the Net because, in a flurry of emotions, people keep repeating something they haven’t verified. Perfect example: a few years ago, emails were flying all over the place claiming that the US had removed the words “In God We Trust” from the new dollar coin. Pictures even accompanied the email proving the words were gone. What was omitted from the emails was this side view of the coins:

Side view of dollar coins with "In God we trust"

As you can clearly see, “In God We Trust” appears on the edge of the coin. An abhorrent amount of time, energy and anger was wasted on people forwarding an incorrect email. Bottom line: give things time to play out before you forward or post things on the Internet.

Rule #6 – Don’t react to messages and websites which pull at your emotions – especially fear. Social Engineering is a hacker’s most useful tool. If they can convince you that something’s wrong, they will manipulate you right out of your hard earned money. If you want to know who NOT to trust on the Internet, don’t trust anyone or any website which uses fear to motivate you. Yes, people on the Net can see your IP address if you’re online. So what? You can see my house number on our mailbox and above our garage door when you drive down our street. That doesn’t tell you anything about who is inside and what is going on.

Learn to recognize parody sites is my Rule #7. One of my favorite parody sites is The Babylon Bee. (Click on the logo below if you want to see what a parody site looks like.) They tend to go after political stories and church-related articles but anyone and anything is fair game there. Here are some samples of their recent headlines:

  • Historians: Women Invented Grilling To Trick Men Into Cooking
  • Warren Returns To Tribe In Shame After Failing To Take Land Back From The Pale Faces
  • Miracle: Coronavirus Passes Over Houses With Chick-Fil-A Sauce Smeared On Door Posts
  • Paid Mourners Weep As Bloomberg Exits Primary

On the surface, those headlines appear obviously fake, don’t they? Here’s the problem: people will take a parody article, alter it slightly to make it seem real, and then pass it on. Moral of this story: check out the various parody sites to see what’s not true. Besides The Babylon Bee, you can find other parody sites simply by searching in Bing or Google “parody websites.”

That’s it for my seven rules to help you know who to trust on the Internet. If you have any suggestions to add to my list, use the comment area below!