Social Media and Truth

How do you know what you know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information? 

Personally, I know what I know from research. I’ve always been a critical thinker by habit. Whenever I hear new information about anything from political to entertainment to new scientific discoveries, I take it upon myself to research at minimum:

 a) the subject at hand

b) the perspective being presented

c) the opposing perspective, and;

d) the qualifications of the parties presenting the information

I grew up in a household with two parents who were passionate about everything from politics to science to history to healthcare, and so on. However, they were both subjective people. As long as information was presented from a news or media source they trusted, it was true enough. I learned, at an early age, that to get accurate, truthful information, it was going to take more than just regurgitating public opinion to fully understand and “know” what I was talking about.

On social media today, I learned, or at least heard, that more marriages in India are becoming love-based than arranged. Event he arranged marriages now, more often than not, are between couples who met, fell in love, and told their families of their intent to be married. The families, then, would ask the couples if the couples would allow them to arrange it. I shy from saying I believe it is true because it came from the Facebook page Humans of New York where a photographer interviewed an Indian source that I believe is reputable, though I have no way of verifying that. The only verification, albeit shallow, I receive is that I have been following his project for quite some time, and he has traveled the whole world using photojournalism and brief interviewing to capture a brief window into the lives of individuals across the world. I believe him to be reputable, through his posting of perspectives highly controversial that serve him no immediate positive benefit, however, again- this, I have yet to confirm.

I think social media sites are reliable for generating awareness and for notifying the masses of an event in real time. In terms of obtaining credible information, I, personally, feel there are too many messages without verification and without accuracy drifting around the social media space for it to become a true credible source of information. Messages, many completely developed without adherence to guidelines are portrayed as fact when often they are purely based in opinion or unsupported by credible sources. Sometimes, too, the news sources that use Facebook and twitter prematurely report information, choosing to update it throughout the day rather than get their fact straight in advance. I think the ability for social media to be used as a credible source of information becomes skewed when we allow anyone regardless of qualification to comment or direct public opinion through the presentation of unqualified and unsupported  information.