Social media has been ablaze with political, religious and social debates. It hasn’t been pretty lately. I try to avoid talking about any of those hot topics on social media. My tag line is, “wife, mother, author” and not “political activist” so I tend to stick to family, food, kittens, chickens, writing and other neutral topics.
But lately there have been some exceptions to my self-imposed-silence regarding heated subjects. I simply cannot seem to keep my mouth shut when one side or the other spreads lies in order to stoke the fire of emotions.
I read this quote by Senator Moynihan yesterday and felt inspired to jump on my little soap box for a moment. “While we are all entitled to our own opinions, we’re not entitled to our own facts.”
Both sides of every debate seem to quickly put Facebook and Twitter to work in order to spread images that are either half-truths or blatant lies. I am all for free speech and our right to express our opinions, but when they lie to garner support I lose respect for the organization.
Below is pictured an example of a blatant lie told by NARAL during the Hobby Lobby debate. I know the folks at NARAL are educated enough on the subject to know that they were telling a lie in an effort to spread their message. NARAL is well aware of the fact that Hobby Lobby’s health insurance already covers forms of monthly (as pictured) birth control pills. So why did they create this image? It spread like wildfire. That is why. It made people angry. It made people react.
Completely False Information Spread by NARAL
Here is my soapbox moment: Before you hit “share” on any images on Facebook or “retweet” on Twitter please take a moment to research the facts. People, politicians and organizations are using all of us on social media to quickly spread false information. Incredibly intelligent people are getting sucked into the emotion of the political, religious and social debates. Don’t be one of them. We are all smarter than everyone is acting online. Spread facts and the truth.
We can disagree. It would just be nice if we did so by using the truth to support our opinions.
Back to the topic of kittens . . .
WELL SAID, my friend! Well said!!!