Don’t believe everything I say …
(Until after you have tested it for disinformation)
An image of Pope Leo delivering a 36-minute message addressed to the president of Burkina Faso. The video was fake.
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” —2 Timothy 4:3
I’ve repeatedly experienced a disconcerting pattern of text messages. The series goes like this.
Unknown sender: Do you want to come for dinner tonight? I’m cooking salmon.
Me: Wrong number. (I think it’s courteous to tell a sender that the message went to the wrong place.)
Sender: Aren’t you Olivia from the dance studio?
Me: No, I am not.
Sender: I’m so sorry to interrupt you. I hope you have a nice day.
Me: No problem.
Sender: You seem very nice. My name is Jenny and I’m from Seattle. May I know where you are from?
The sender’s fourth message always shifts to seeking information from me, demonstrating an established scamming pattern designed to gain the trust of caring, friendly people. Probably an algorithm sends such messages to millions of numbers each day. One even sent a photo of a young woman with the fourth message.
Christians should seize every opportunity to love our neighbors, including those who contact us unintentionally. But evil people are bombarding us with scams and disinformation. Educating people to avoid them should be a priority for all of us.
You may think you’re not susceptible to scams. You might even remind me that the safest way to avoid text-message scammers is not to answer the first message. But what about fake news?
“Pope Leo XIV” has been busy making a lot of false statements, thanks to creative AI and social media users. In May, this “quotation” from the new pope began circulating: “You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. He is sent to test you. And many are failing.”
That would be a great condemnation of a variety of contemporary political leaders, but my immediate reaction, confirmed by the Snopes investigation website and by this article, was that a brand-new pope wouldn’t and didn’t make such a statement.
One major factor in the growing problem of people trusting unreliable information sources isthat many people no longer trust reliable sources. When I was young, the factual reliability of major news outlets was virtually undisputed. Now we have a plethora of news sources, many catering to their audience on ideological grounds. So conservatives distrust “liberal” sources and vice versa.
Granted, media bias can take subtle forms such as selective presentation of facts, misleading headlines, and intertwining facts with interpretation. That’s a good topic for another post. But overall, Christians tend to rank high in gullibility. Our hopefulness, passion, and deep theological convictions can lead us to accept as true what we want to be true. Such behavior may make us happy today but will undermine our credibility tomorrow.
Some suggested antidotes:
Develop the practice of reading and listening critically. Ask yourself repeatedly, even with major media, how you know that what you’re receiving is true. Do an online search. If no other source is reporting similar information, it’s probably not true.
Read multiple sources with different perspectives, especially ones not closely aligned with your personal ideology.
Don’t share (except with knowledgeable friends who can tell you whether something is true) or act on information you can’t verify.
Distinguish fact from opinion, and then ask whether the opinions are sufficiently justified by the facts.
Consider whether the source may have a motivation for sharing certain information, or a conflict of interest.
As part of your spiritual reflections, examine whether you are developing your beliefs based on what’s true or on what’s comfortable for you.
Fake news has been around for a long time—from the false prophets in Elijah or Jeremiah’s day, to the people who denied the threat of COVID-19 or denied the results of the 2020 US election—and has hurt a lot of people. Don’t be a victim or a perpetrator.
(I enjoyed discovering this article by The Pillar, a Catholic media project, which discusses how attentive media consumers can identify Pope Leo fakes or verify legitimate information.)
Example from a discerning reader
I asked Brent Fulton of ChinaSource, who suggested a post on this topic, for a China-related illustration. He told me about this claim, reported in 2021 by the Epoch Times but subsequently debunked, that China had created military helmets with a self-destruct device so that commanders could kill deserting soldiers from a distance by activating it. Fulton says he still hears this story repeated occasionally.
Coincidence?
Today, July 4, is Independence Day in the US. My selection of this day for a post on fake news is purely coincidental. On the other hand, if a creative example of fake news show up at this blog on April 1 (traditionally known as April Fools’ Day), it will not be coincidental!