Would you be disappointed to learn that you are not Taylor Swift?
I love that BuzzFeed thinks I am 17.
BuzzFeed quizzes are fantastic because they make no sense. They tell me I'll be rich because I like cheese pizza. They assure me I am only part hipster, probably because I own a scooter. And no matter which quiz I take, BuzzFeed thinks I am 17. Quizzes are all good. They are short, silly, visual, interactive, easy to share and entirely made-up, just like the popular horoscope columns of our day, except back then, we used to clip and share them by post when they were really pertinent.
Would you be disappointed to learn that you are not Taylor Swift? Or that doughnuts are not great predictors of the future? Probably not. Most of us are smart enough to know that not everything that is popular and in writing is true. In fact, a whole whack of it is false and that concept didn't start with the internet. Tabloids have reported on alien abductions for decades, and although we bought those newspapers in the millions, chances are, most of us did not worry about being placed on the To Probe list.
All that clickbait on your Facebook page? That's not news. Neither is that meme with the brilliant caption. Or that widely shared video with your favourite reality star. Just like garnering millions of hits or likes or followers does not make someone a world leader (at least most of the time), a story that is shared widely is not necessarily news.
Yes it can be hard to distinguish between a story that claims Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop and another one where Trump claims he grabs women by the wahoo because he feels like it. The truth can be complicated. But in the end, WE are responsible for sorting out fact from fiction. Facebook has no clear legal obligation to vet its content for fake news anymore than it does for fake profile photos or fake status updates. I encourage everyone to count on a wide variety of sources from different media to sort out fact from fiction.
Or you can ask a doughnut for its outlook on 2017. It's up to you.
-- Ava Chisling ([email protected])