Let’s talk a bit about being a good citizen. Civic duty can include things like obeying the law, voting, serving on a jury – but I want to add one more thing – not sharing fake Facebook posts like the one I screenshotted below. It contains a whole bunch of malarky about some things official that “passed on TV?” What does that even mean?
But the part that gets me is the “can’t hurt!” Plus all the stuff after it that is a flat-out lie where you’re claiming something happened that did not and that you saw something you did not.
Here’s how it hurts us all. Online social engineering experiments are one of the top ways that malicious foreign actors target folks who happen to live in countries with a relative amount of freedom. They test us out to see how many unverified lies we’ll share and they track the patterns to learn how they can dupe us into spreading misinformation or downloading malware that will do it for them. Click here for the real scoop on what’s happening with verified Facebook accounts.
Cyberspace is a central focus of the arms race and when you share things for facts that blatantly aren’t true you hurt everyone. Now there are some points of contention that are arguable – the post above is not one of them. It is a blatant falsehood that I have seen dozens and dozens of people share. Stop falling for the fakers!