"Memes," as they're commonly called, are those images you see with accompanying text that aim to reinforce your political views or those of someone you think is dumb. They crawl down your Facebook or Twitter feed ad nauseam throughout the day. Sometimes, if they're compelling enough (Sarah Palin says something that confirms she's as dumb as you think she is; Obama "wants" to put us all in camps), you share them.
We're all guilty of sharing something not-entirely-correct at one point or another.
Sometimes poor attempts at satire go viral because people don't understand them. Other times, the messages seem like deliberate attempts to mislead an unsuspecting (and in some cases ignorant) public.
Before anyone bothers with fact-checking, they're already up on tens of thousands of social media feeds.
On Monday, Politifact writer Louis Jacobson took a look at ten of the worst social media and chain email offenders of 2014.
Looking back on Politifact's ratings of claims circulating via social media and chain emails, Jacobson writes that about 20 percent of viral Facebook "memes" are mostly or completely true. As for those chain emails your Natty Ice-chugging uncle keeps sending you from his underground bunker in Idaho, well, Politifact reckons about 7 percent of those are true.
Monday's list was indiscriminating in terms of the political leaning of a given piece of fake information. It debunked a couple of deeply misinformed attacks on President Obama and the First Lady lobbed by our informationally malnourished friends on the right. It also dismantles a claim that there are arrest warrants for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in Europe and one positing that FOX News has said it has "the right to lie or deliberately distort news on public airwaves." (Okay, the latter isn't that hard to believe.)
Another gem:
A newer anti-Obamacare claim surfaced this year. A reader sent us a link to a September American News article that claims an 86-year-old woman, Dorothy Zborknak, was ordered executed after a panel established by the Affordable Care Act determined that "she is no longer useful." We debunked the myth of death panels in 2009, selecting it as our inaugural Lie of the Year, and almost five years later, death panels are still not a part of U.S. health care law. But the kicker is that "Dorothy Zbornak" is the name of Bea Arthur's character on the old TV sitcom The Golden Girls. We rated the claim Pants on Fire.
The moral of the story is, no matter how much that chain email or image macro confirms what you think is the truth about How Things Really Are, please check your facts before you spread more stupidity. We're all guilty of having done so at some point, but there are ways to do one's homework before sharing. Snopes.com is of course a quick and easy way to debunk claims like Obamacare requiring all Americans to be microchipped or some other bullshit.
Or don't. Whatever.
Because, really, why bother to look into how Ebola is really transmitted if that meme on your screen confirms that Obama is Ebola?
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.