At the dinner table last night, we were discussing a text message that I received from a trustworthy-friend who said that one of the 4 demonstrators who died at the rally/riot in Washington DC this week had died by tasering his own testicles and thusly suffering a cardiac event. He also made mention that another participant had been trampled by the crowd after earlier being photographed wielding a “Don’t Tread On Me”-flag.
“Bear in mind, this guy is usually reliable, but it fits his biases too much, so I would need to verify it,” I said to the family. Christine proceeded to say that she had seen the same thing on FB. As supporting evidence, she held up and shared the post of FB friend, who had shared a screen-grab of a post of a stranger, who had something to say about the subject.
I refused to even read it.
That is NOT how we think. That is how we follow. That is how we become unthinking zombie-lemmings. THAT is why I am not on social media anymore. I am the filter for my own thinking, and I will critically appraise information that I will consciously seek from multiple and varied sources with different leanings/slants, especially those I disagree with.
My buddy shared a link to the news, which said:
Outlets are claiming that one of the people who died from emergencies actually played a part in their own death. News 1130, as well as other news sources, are reporting that one of the males who died did so after accidentally shocking himself with a taser, which caused him to have a heart attack.
I followed the link to News 1130 and it read:
By Thursday morning it was known four people died; one was shot by police and the other three suffered medical emergencies. One man died after he apparently struck himself with a taser.
So the taser-thing might be true, the part about the testicles might be SoMe-fodder.
Now – one morning and 12 hours later – as I continue my pursuit, I find on the ‘knowyourmeme‘-site the following entry:
The rumor that Greeson tasered himself in the testicles while trying to steal a picture of Tip O’Neill was started by Twitter user @ggooooddddoogg,[7] who early in the morning on January 7th wrote, “i don’t think it’s funny at all that a maga guy accidentally tased himself in his own balls until he died while trying to steal a painting of thomas p. “tip” o neill from a hallway.” The tweet gained over 500 retweets and 3,000 likes … After @ggooooddddoogg’s tweet, several people parroted the rumor across social media. Twitter user @karlhess reposted the rumor without knowing of its origin on the afternoon of January 7th, gaining over 19,000 retweets and 193,000 likes. Similar image macros have appeared on Reddit[10] and Imgur.
Okay – so there was a gentleman who died from taser-accident, but there seems to be little evidence that I can find online that would indicate that the “tasered himself in the balls”-thing is at all real and there seems to be evidence to the contrary.
So now I move on to the report of the woman who was trampled to death. (1) Was she trampled? (2) Is the irony of her holding a “Don’t Tread On Me”-flag real?
An internet search yielded a story on Salon (too liberal), which was re-posted from RAWStory (too liberal), which cited Axios (more middle), which cited a local CBS affiliate from where the deceased had lived. That link featured a picture of the woman holding the flag (wearing the same clothing as other pictures of her from the same day) and a firsthand account of the day and her death by a friend who was with her that confirmed the stories I had already read. So yeah, that one is true.
This morning, I will share my findings with kids. I have already shared my thoughts with Christine.
Within our own extended family, we are witnessing the effects of unfiltered and uncritical consumption of news media and the impact of vertical (rather than lateral) reading. The consequences are frightening and I cannot allow my own children to grow up without learning to employ the tools of reasoning and skepticism when taking in information around them, even from people that they trust. It is our responsibility to teach them how to be critical of themselves and others, even while acknowledging our own imperfections.
This is why I still write. I have learned that I cannot influence a large number of people in social media, but there is a chance that I might be able influence 2-3 kids who read this article.
#fingerscrossed