Write a commentThe phrase “don’t believe everything you see on the internet” is advice most of us learned a long time ago.
As more of us get our news and information online instead of from traditional media, that old adage is more important than ever, but unfortunately, it seems to be followed less and less.
Today, anyone with a computer can create a headline or manufacture a statistic, and within minutes, it can reach thousands of people.
Tell someone a candidate is leading by 10 points, that a policy has 70% support or that voters overwhelmingly favor a particular position, and it can quickly become accepted as fact. It’s no wonder misinformation spreads so easily. The responsibility of separating fact from fiction is increasingly falling on the person reading the information, rather than the person publishing it. It’s a difficult expectation when most people don’t have the time to fact-check everything they see—and there are people who know that and use it to their advantage.
It has never been easier to manufacture and spread information that looks legitimate. We recently saw this play out when a previously unknown group released fabricated election polls in Wisconsin and California. The numbers were later acknowledged as part of what the organization, Median Strategies, called a “social experiment,” after the results had already entered the political conversation and generated attention online.
Public opinion influences how the media covers a race and how voters view the candidates and issues involved. False information can create a false sense of momentum, making people believe an election is already decided. When political or financial interests have something to gain from convincing people that a particular narrative is true, we should be especially careful before accepting a number at face value. A poll is only as good as the people conducting it and the information behind it. There should be a clear explanation of who conducted the survey, who was surveyed, how the questions were asked, how the results were weighted and who paid for the research.
We are living in a sea of information, and unfortunately, not all of it is truthful. That does not mean we should stop trusting every poll or every piece of information we encounter. It means we need to ask questions.
American news habits have shifted, with a majority of adults now getting news from social media, news websites, podcasts and email newsletters. That makes it more important than ever to pay attention to where our information comes from and whether we can trust it. And this goes well beyond polls. We should all take a moment to question the headlines we read, the statistics we see and the claims we encounter online. We may not have the time to fact-check every piece of information that crosses our screen, but we can be more careful about what we accept as fact and what we choose to share with others.
If you have any questions or comments on this or any other state issue, or if you would like to be added to my mailing list or receive my newsletter, please contact my office. My office can be reached by mail at 19 Canalview Mall, Fulton, NY 13069 and by email at [email protected]. You may also find me, Assemblyman Will Barclay, on Facebook or X at @WillABarclay.
