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Unmasking the Illusion: The Perils of Misinformation and How to Navigate the Sea of Fake News

This post may seem ridiculous to some. However, I assure you that if you bear with me, you will understand why I am writing this. Furthermore, you may look at the information found on the internet in a whole new light.

To start with, I would like to say there is information for anything you wish to find out online. There is very good, somewhat reasonable, terrible, and downright horribly made-up information out there. All of this information comes to us on our devices, like the phones we carry around all day. The problem is that some of the younger generations take the information they find on the internet as absolute truth. All the information is there for the taking. All we have to do is look for it. But wait, didn’t someone have to put this information on a website in the first place? Have you ever asked yourself, “Maybe the person who wrote this is wrong,” or “Maybe they left some of the important information out of the text that you are reading?”

Let me put this as simply as I can. Not all the information online is true. In all actuality, if you pay attention, you will find that a great percentage of what you are reading is false! This is also the case in videos. Videos can be changed to show a certain outcome that is different from what actually happened. I’m not saying that all the information out there is false. As I stated before, there is a percentage of falsehood placed for you to read and watch.

Man looks at skeleton on a computer tablet
Don’t trust everything you see online

Information out there can be used to help us in many ways. On the same note, information out there can also cause us and others harm. We have to be careful when believing what we are reading and watching online, just as we do with television. In most cases, the ability to pull up information online is far worse than what we see on television. This is mainly because television is monitored closely, whereas the internet is not.

Here is an example of something that I know a lot about, and I could write it down for you and post it for you to read. I have done a fair amount of welding in the past, and now that I have spent quite a bit of time writing, telling you how to weld two pieces of metal together would be easy for me. However, if I were to leave out what tint of glass to use in your welding helmet, you could seriously hurt your eyes. Furthermore, if there was a typo in what tint to use, you could also hurt your eyes by following my directions. Would I do this on purpose? Of course not, but it could happen. This silly situation happens more often than you think. Typos happen. People leave out information to make their posts or videos fit into a certain time frame. Or the person writing a post or presenting a video may not find certain information necessary. It is possible they feel it is not worth mentioning certain things because, to them, it is common sense. However, to someone who has never tried what you are teaching, it may not be common sense at all. So, if you want to learn how to weld, you would be safer going to school for it or at least having a person who knows how to teach you in person, not on video. Is any of this sinking in yet?

Here is an example that we see every day: Two newscasters tell you what a politician is saying about what they stand for. One newscaster is liberal, and the other is conservative. The first question that you need to ask yourself is which side the politician is on. Is he or she a liberal or a conservative? This will make a huge difference in how the reporters tell you what is going on. If he or she is a conservative and you are listening to a liberal reporter, then you will get a variable difference than if you listen to the conservative reporter. And this works on both sides. Are the reporters changing the story? Probably not, but there will be a bias from one side to the other. When reporting, using certain words or stressing certain words can manipulate the audience of the newscast. This paragraph got your attention, didn’t it?

So what do we do with the information we are receiving from the internet to fix this issue? The best you can do is look up multiple sites on the subject you want to know about and find the variations. From there, we must use our own intelligence and some common sense to decide which we want to believe. This, of course, takes more time than just believing the first thing you read or hear. However, you will find that you will become educated and successful if you take this extra time.

Here is a small test that you can use to see if my argument holds water or not. Look up which breed of dog is best to own as a family dog. I have my favorites, and you have yours, but which breed is best? When you look it up, you will find my favorites, your favorites, and many others. Why is this? The answer is simple. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject, so you will find article after article about different breeds. This will hold true on any subject that you look up online, all because everyone wants their opinions heard and believes their opinions are the right ones. Are you going to run with the first article you read or do a little searching before you bring that dog into your home to live with your family? I hope you do some research first.

Lady (Ai) shown in computer screen
Artificial intelligence pulls information from the internet that was first put there by humans.

One last thought for you about the internet AI (artificial intelligence) is being used more and more to write information. These posts written by AI can be helpful, but they can also be misleading. Be very careful when reading AI scripts.

On that note, I will leave you to ponder what I have said. Please don’t take my word for it. Look up other opinions on the internet, and I hope you come back to my post on this subject as the one to believe. Well, I have to go now. I am working on my fiction writing on my other website (csi-extras.com). If you wish to read some of my fiction stories, I suggest you go take a look. This website (readcsi.com) is strictly for my and my guests opinions to help you in society. Take care, and remember, we are all in this together.

How to find truth on the internet

       Trust those that seek the truth, but doubt those that say they have found it.

      Who should we believe when searching for the truth? Think about going on the internet and searching for an answer to a question you may have. The answer may be, and probably is there, but what about all the false information that is also there? How are you to decide who is giving you the true answer to your question? That is something that is very hard to do, isn’t it? Anybody can put anything on the internet, whether it is true or not. So where is the correct answer you seek?

        Let me give an example here, I can write down everything that I know about nuclear fusion and fill in what I don’t know with a bunch of untruths. I can make it sound very good and reasonable to someone who doesn’t know about it. I can even put in some big words that I find in the dictionary and make it sound even better. Furthermore,  I can go as far as to make up different educational studies and certificates that I have acquired in nuclear fusion. In all actuality, I can lie in so many ways that it would be almost impossible to find out that I am a fake. Why is it that I can accomplish this task? If you learn the answer to that question, you are already halfway to finding the truth.

Lady looking for answers on laptop computer

       The internet is full of great information. It is also full of a bunch of lies and nonsense. We must be careful what we believe when surfing the net. It can be a good thing, but also a very dangerous place to be. If you are not very careful, you can end up with a brain full of nothing more than fiction. The problem is that most people today don’t take the time to find the true answers to their questions. Instead, they just look at the first thing that pops up and go with what is written there. Are you one of those people, or someone who takes the time to do research before making a decision?

        Some people would say it takes common sense, (something that I write a lot about) to choose the correct answer. This could be true if we were discussing how to make a cat purr, but we are talking about nuclear fusion. This would take more than common sense to figure out, wouldn’t it? Common sense can be used here, but it would tell us to do our research before coming to a conclusion. This is where the problem lies. People today want the quick answers, they don’t want to go old school (another term I write about) and have to do any work.

      So, what is the problem with going with the highest ranked resource on the internet and not looking anywhere else? I’m going to tell you a little secret here, with enough work an author can rank number one with a bunch of lies. This is a talent that authors learn to get on that front page of your search. That by no means makes it true! That just means the author worked harder than the others below him/her on the front page. Anybody that writes for a living and is reading this, knows exactly what I am talking about. To those that don’t understand, look up, “What is (S.E.O)” in your search engine and this will explain it for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a writer trying to get on the front page, because this is how we make better money. I do have a problem with writer’s writing untruths and getting there.

Woman texting on phone, laptop open in front of her

       The internet is a great tool if used with common sense. This means, find your answers, but don’t believe everything you read. Even though, in this day and age, it is easier to find the answers, it is also easier to be led astray! As a closing thought, I must add that I know very little about nuclear fusion, and I’m not going to write about it either. What I write is to help you in a society that is no longer stable within itself. This is my main purpose in talking common sense. When I say we need to bring back old school thought, this is to bring us back when we used our brains more than computers. Computers are a great invention and I truly enjoy my smartphone, but I don’t depend on it to tell me how to live. Remember, computers were created by humans, not the other way around. Always keep in mind, if you want the answer to a hard question, research is the way to go. Take care my friends. Remember, we are all in this together.