Emily : I am so fed up of all these fake news rubbish on Facebook! Did you see the article in the paper on it? They were joking about how it went viral that Leo DiCaprio had died? People just believe everything these days.
Michele : Yeah, I wish there was a way of filtering through everything to know what was true. I think we’d be surprised to see how much rubbish there is floating around out there.
Paul : I agree, but I have no idea how social media sites can control that. Also, I’m not sure that I want somebody telling me what I can and cannot say. Of course, it’s bad that people post news that just isn’t true, but I think it would be even worse if people are stopped from saying what they want.
Emily : But I don’t know an alternative. As this article was saying, there doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop people posting things that are completely false. It’s bad enough spreading lies about an actor dying, but what about people falsely saying there’s been a terrorist attack, or a natural disaster? These kind of things can have huge consequences!
Michele : I agree, if only we could trust what we read! But I think we ought to be spending more time educating younger people on the consequences of social media, of their actions on social media, and how to figure out when something is good or bad. I understand Paul’s point, that you can’t stop people posting, but I think we can be educating kids about it.