GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's time for 'My 2 Cents.'
Something bizarre happened to me yesterday and while everything is resolved I think there's a lesson in this.
It all began when my cousin sent me a video he found on Tik Tok. It was a man telling a story about a college student who came home to find a man in her closet, wearing her clothes.
This actually happened in February 2019 TO A UNC-Greensboro student – named Maddie.
However, the man on Tik Tok said this happened to me - which, of course, is NOT the case. Now, that didn't stop him from publishing the video with my pictures and other inaccuracies to his 1.2 million followers.
I messaged the man who posted the video and told him it was simply not true and misleading and asked him to please take it down.
He responded that he would and apologized but it's the next part of his message that I have an issue with. He said, "Unfortunately I search really hard for photos sometimes and can't find photos that match specific stories so I use others from Google."
That's a problem. He admitted to knowing this was untrue but posting it anyway. It is irresponsible to cherry pick a few factual details and fill in blanks with things you find on Google. It's damaging to both the people involved and anyone who sees the video because it's misinformation.
We know misinformation is an issue on social media. It affects us all. This time, it made more of an impact on me, yes, but that doesn't make it any worse than other posts that spread lies and falsities.
So what's My 2 Cents after all of this? Be careful what you believe. Check the sources. Don't take social media posts at face value. Do your own research. And call out and report people and pages that post these inaccurate things.