A Facebook friend shared a copied post from Linda who told about her mother who knew a nurse who supposedly submitted unused coronavirus tests that came back positive. Linda concluded: “it’s beyond greed and money for hospitals.” My friend wondered: “is this true?”
My first rule of thumb on gossip, whether face-to-face or through social media, is this: consider the source. Who is Linda? According to her profile, Linda is a white-haired woman in leopard print who quotes Diamond and Silk: “Are we all being played, hoodwinked and bamboozled? You be the judge.”
But the source of this report isn’t Linda. No, it was posted by someone else whose mother supposedly knew a nurse, and Linda just copied it, blacking out the name. Her rationale for posting: “I don’t forward posts unless I see them and feel led.”
Just this week, a major furniture company was accused of child trafficking because their website listed expensive industrial cabinets and overpriced pillows. Now, thousands of concerned consumers are ready to boycott the company because “I think it’s true.” “It’s disgusting.” The original source? Newsweek traced it to a Princess Peach, a Reddit user. I wonder if Princess Peach knows Linda?
A second rule of thumb to determine what is true is this: does this fit with what I know about the world? Is the coronavirus just fake news invented by the Dems to control the next election? In this case, what I do know is that my friend in New Jersey died from complications of the coronavirus. Nick Cordero, a Broadway actor whose wife is a dear friend of my neighbor, died of the coronavirus. Is it all a dream like the Wizard of Oz, and I will wake up someday, pinching myself in relief? No. The coronavirus is real.
A third way to consider the truth of a particular theory is to ask, might there be another reasonable explanation? If a pillow is listed at $999, is it possible the seller made a mistake in pricing? As in forgetting a decimal point? If a website lists fourteen million items, could the name of a missing child somewhere in the world possibly be associated with a product without implicating it in a trafficking conspiracy? Consider the core of Ockham’s Razor, first posited by William of Ockham: other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.
Please understand. Child sex trafficking is horrendous. The coronavirus is horrendous. We must do all we can as a society to stop the spread of both. But the cavalier way that conspiracy theories are inspired, spewed and relentlessly shared tends to make these bad situations even worse.
Remember Pizzagate? It began with hacked e-mails spread by Wikileaks, with supposedly coded trafficking messages, calling attention to a pizza parlor’s logo “resembling” satanic symbols. Edgar Welch thought it made perfect sense, so he traveled to D.C. with an AR-15 rifle to shoot up the pizza place and rescue the trafficked children held captive in the basement. Except there was no basement, no trafficked children. When asked about her part in promoting the conspiracy, one writer said: “I really have no regrets and it’s honestly really grown our audience.” Wow.
Tim Marcin commented on the accused furniture company. “Again, the internet has churned out a wild, potentially hurtful conspiracy theory that caught fire with scant evidence. Just another day online. People find a coincidence, or something odd, then twist and dig for more coincidences, and before you know it, people are jumping to wild conclusions.”
Feeling led to share like Linda? The following counsel is attributed to Rumi, an ancient poet and mystic. “Before you speak, [or tweet or post – my addition] let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, ‘is it true?’ At the second gate, ‘is it necessary?’ At the third gate, ‘is it kind?’”
An additional question from Hindu teacher Sathya Sai Baba challenges me: “Does it improve the silence?” My own faith tradition echoes from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” Now, if we can only draw upon the wisdom to know the difference.
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