We all have that grandparent who takes everything they read on Facebook at face value. The ones that warn you against brain damage from talking on the phone and give you bizarre health tips on how to lose weight from an “article” they read online.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. The unfortunate truth in this age of social media is that not everything you read online is factual.

Investigations into the 2016 election have turned up alarming evidence of possible Russian interference via fake social media accounts, but it’s not only attacks from foreign countries you should be worried about. So called “fake news” is          vfrequently home grown.

Just months ago in 2018, articles popped up yet again claiming the LGBTQ+ community was campaigning to allow pedophiles be added under their umbrella and accepted      into society.

Twitter and Facebook made the articles go viral. Tweets containing the articles and posts from accounts were retweeted and reposted hundreds of thousands of times. You can imagine how this was hurtful to an already marginalized community, but this isn’t the first time nor will it be the last.

Snope, a news source known for its incredible skill in fact checking, debunked this quickly and thoroughly. This misinformation campaign was a hoax that began June 23, 2016, in a thread on a website called 4chan. The campaign wanted to discredit the ongoing movement for LGBTQ+ rights, confuse supporters and even members of the community and dredge up hatred and animosity among              the public.

The anonymous account gave detailed instructions on how to spread their fake poster and get it to gain traction. They told supporters to create fake social media accounts and showed them which hashtags to use to get clicks.

One account existed on Twitter, posing as a spokesperson for an official “LGBTQP” organization. This account posted the doctored poster with the pedosexual tag. Media sources ate it up and it began to show up on Facebook where it gained even more attention.

So, if this has been debunked, why does it keep appearing year after year and why do people keep falling for it?

The answer is two-fold. These people are dedicated and relentless; they are sometimes just out to make quick, easy money.

Sometimes, these fake news creators aren’t loyal to one party or ideology. They seize on whatever is the current topic of conversation, whatever is the most controversial and whatever is going to get the most attention from the public.

Other times, they are like the ones I mentioned above: malicious, focused and dangerously intelligent. They know what works, they know human behavior and they know we’re not going to do our own research.

They count on you to take what they say and run with it without a second thought. They know how to play on public outrage and they know just what to say and how to say it to get you to react with your emotions and not your brain.

Facebook and Twitter are a cesspool for these types of false information to be spread quickly and easily. It only takes a few seconds to hit the share or like button, but it takes years to undo the damage.

So, getting all your news from social media is a terrible idea. It’s almost designed to keep you misinformed and ignorant. Be sure to double check the things that you read. Do your own research and you won’t fall for headlines and scams explicitly formulated to get you to react.