Just a few minutes ago one of my FaceBook friends posted a video clickbait meme that proclaims that the stripes on the base of a toothpaste tube apparently tells you the composition of the toothpaste enclosed inside i.e. Green: natural; Blue : Natural + Medicine; Red : Natural + Chemical composition; Black : pure chemical. That’s bullshit! Pure bullshit.
Holy shit if this one doesn’t scream anti-science bullshit I don’t know what does!… Don’t share bullshit on FaceBook!… Just don’t do it!
My friends reasoning for posting? “Well I’ll admit I didn’t verify it before posting because I thought it rather benign but I won’t take responsibility for how dumb people are, lol”
WTF? “…won’t take responsibility for how dumb people are“. How about taking some responsibility for spreading ignorance!
It’s not so benign at all. It helps perpetuate the terrible anit-science myths that “Everything Natural Is Good For You” (NOT TRUE i.e. volcanos, lead, arsenic, cyanide, botulin, tobacco, etc. are all natural) and “Chemicals are bad for you” (EVERYTHING IS A FUCKIN CHEMICAL! EVERYTHING!)
Falsehoods delegitimize pretty much every cause and delegitimize you too. Post enough bullshit and have enough people calling you on your crap posting links to Snopes article debunking your meme and people will no longer take you seriously. “Oh that just Crazy Janey or Crackpot Johnny posting again.”
Wondering what you can do to stop the propagation of bullshit reading Danny Brown’s guest poster Jennifer Dunn article linked below is a start…
Fact Checking Facebook: How to Do it and Why You Should
This is a guest post by Jennifer Dunn. It’s back. Last week grandma posted the old, “With this status I hereby declare that all my Facebook content belongs to me and only me…’ and all of a sudden the mythical Berner convention is gunking up your Facebook feed again.