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Think Before You Post

Written on .

Think Before You Post

– by David Eugene Perry

After 38 years in communications, I’ve never seen it like this.  It’s never BEEN like this. 

Today, a Republican Facebook friend deleted my comment proving that a photo of Kamala Harris with Jeffrey Epstein is a lie. A Democrat online friend refused to delete their posted meme saying that Starbucks was a major donor to the GOP convention, also proved to be a fiction. For the record: Starbucks provides free coffee to first responders at both conventions as they have for years: a bipartisan caffeination if ever I saw it. But, to extend the metaphor: too many people are drinking the Koolaid of fake news and inaccurate memes, as dangerous an exercise in this polarized political moment as the real life Jim Jones massacre that inspired that phrase.  

I respect all my friends, despite political differences: online and off. However, my thumbs are becoming the most muscular part of my body as I attempt to shovel back the ocean of digital detritus. “If it seems too good to be true it probably is too good to be true” has never been a cliché more suited for now. There’s a difference between free speech and free access to the Internet.  Think before you post. Actually Snopes.com before you post.

My lodestar for political debate (actually for everything) is my Grandma (1898 – 1989). As a child, I walked with her to the polls. At age 14 I asked her if she remembered her first election.

“I voted in the first election in which women were allowed to vote,” she said, leaning on my teenaged shoulder. As a “Yella’ Dog Democrat” she had her preferences (“FDR saved my family’s life”) but I always remember her wizened wisdom as she entered her precinct: “If you put a Democrat and a Republican in a bag and shake ‘em up, I don’t know who would fall out first.”

Indeed, the last few years (decades ?) have shaken up our political discourse, and I have no idea who will “fall out” this November. But, I do know this: reposting mindless memes doesn’t inform our electorate. Argue, advocate and above all vote for the candidate of your choice. But, for the love of all things Holy: stop spreading misinformation. And no, as of this moment, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift aren’t doing a concert for Kamala and Trump didn’t “stage” his assassination attempt. I would recommend for the next 100 days (how ‘bout forever) we ascribe to “The Four Gates of Speech” before we open our mouths or activate our socially iphoned digits:

  • Is what I have to say true?
  • Is what I have to say necessary?
  • Is now the appropriate time to say this?
  • Is what I’m saying kind?

And, if once we open those gates and our efforts are proven to be false? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Take down that post. 

— David Eugene Perry

David Eugene Perry has been a PR consultant for 38 years, and is the author of the award winning mystery thriller “Upon This Rock”