Do You Hunt for Truth?

Do you believe everything you see on social media? As you are scrolling through your daily feed do you question some of the things that are posted? Do you follow a story through to the original source to get to the truth facts?

Three times this week alone on one of my feeds there were stories which were either slanted or completely false. These stories were intended to cause damage to a person or a company. Of course they all ended with the command to “Please share with everyone. Spread the word.”

In one case a disabled man made a big deal about a particular store not allowing him to ride a disabled cart out to his vehicle. The story made it look as if he was left stranded in the doorway and had to crawl on his hands to his car. The store was cruel and inhuman in its behavior toward his disability. There was a picture of him in the doorway of the store supporting himself on his hands.

However, we have to ask the question: how did he get into the store? Who was taking the picture for him? Why didn’t this person get him to his vehicle then? In my experience MOST stores do not allow motorized carts to leave the store. Also in my experience most stores have employees who are more than happy to help a customer in need. This was a store with many employees.

This was a case of a man who wanted to buck the rules, wanted things his own way and the store wouldn’t change its policy for him. So instead of respecting their rules he threw an adult temper tantrum and took it to social media to try to discredit the store.

The second was a case of a woman who claimed to have received a box of food instead of her usual food assistance money. There has been talk about changing the assistance program so people receive boxes of food instead of spendable dollars. However, this has not been made official. So this box was NOT part of that program. But, there were many people who believed her. She was complaining about the quality of the food. I will grant you, the foods she presented in her video were frozen prepackaged foods. Where they truly came from, I don’t know. But it was her intention to bash a program that hasn’t even been put into place.  Her entire post was a lie.

The third was a case about a woman who lost a dog on a flight because it was put in an overhead compartment. While I truly do feel sorry for the loss of any pet, I couldn’t just jump on the sympathy train until I followed the story back further. With just a brief investigation it appears that the woman did not protest the animal being placed in a dangerous place. There was no fight until the animal had tragically lost its life. Instead of taking responsiblity for the loss of her own pet, she chose to condemn the airline.

Now, I will say I did only cursory investigations of these three cases. There is probably a whole lot more to each story than meets the eye. But what they all have in common is the fact that they were presented knowingly to garner sympathy and discredit others in an untruthful manner. And THAT’S what makes me angy.

There are many credible instances where justice should be served. There are companies and people who have done wrong and should face the music for their actions. If they have knowingly and willingly hurt another through greed or disrespect they deserve to be shown for who they are so others do not suffer the same fate at their hands. To make up or change stories to discredit others because you are not happy with some outcome, that is wrong.

What’s worse are those of us who see these things on social media and just share them. We willingly take part in the hatred of something we know nothing about because someone else created a hate train and we jumped right on. We are too lazy to investigate and find the truth story. If someone said he’s bad, then he’s bad and everyone should know it.

Keep this in mind next time you are scrolling through your feed and one of these appears. Instead of mindlessly sharing it because “he must be bad if he did this”, follow the story back. Pull the pertinent information and feed it into a search engine. If no story appears it’s probably not true. If a story does show up, read it and find out what really happened. Then decide if you want to be a part of sharing it. If not, you are just as guilty as the original poster.

It’s time to take responsibility for our own truths. We need to stop letting other people put words into our mouths. If we are saying it, let it be because we know the truth, we believe in the truth, and we stand behind what we believe.