Following Up on the Truth – Snopes.com

In response to yesterday’s post about all of the various things we see being shared all over the internet, Steven Vore reminded me that Snopes.com is your friend.

If you’re not familiar with Snopes.com, you really should be. Snopes is THE place to go and seek out the truth about things before you start sharing them. Of course, Snopes doesn’t usually start investigating a story until they see it making the rounds on the interwebz, so you still want to be careful, even if you don’t see anything on Snopes about it. Heck, I’d probably just wait until Snopes gives you a True before sharing it, just to be safe.

For example, it snowed in the Middle East the other day. That much is true. Egypt, Isreal, Syria, and Gaza sure did have some snowfall. In the midst of this news story, there were photos of the Sphinx and the Pyramids covered in snow, which seemed pretty amazing! Except, they weren’t real. It didn’t snow in those locations, the photos were either clever manipulations, or, my personal favorite, one wasn’t the real Sphinx but a miniature in Japan. lol

So, all you social media mavens and mavenettes out there, make it a habit to stop by Snopes, ok? Check out their What’s new page, subscribe to the RSS feed, follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Trust me, it’ll make you smarter, and it’ll also help you figure out who’s not using it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve apparently won some sort of International Lottery, so I must reply to my email right now!

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