A few weeks ago, I was scrolling on Facebook and saw the most adorable video of a dog bringing her puppy to lay between two swaddled babies. It was such a heartwarming, cozy video that made me happy for a second, until I realized it was an AI generated video. I was duped… though the message was sweet, this was not a real case of puppies and babies snuggling together. 

This simple, harmless video made me step back and think of all the ways social media, the news, the Internet, all of it can be very deceptive. You click on one video or stop too long on an image and suddenly your news and social media feeds are littered with similar content. The algorithms seem to be onto our every whim. So, who do we trust in this age of clickbait, misinformation, AI generated images and videos, and endless propaganda? 

Working at a library, maybe I am inclined to be more sceptical and think more critically about what I am reading or viewing. While getting my masters degree, one of the key tenets we were taught is “information literacy” which means knowing there is an information need, finding it, evaluating it, and then using it. I learned to get information from more than one source and to check the validity of what I was reading. We were taught to understand that everyone has an agenda when they write and it is our responsibility as consumers to realize this. I have taken this level of scepticism with me, and do my best to verify information before taking it as fact.

In this day and age, it is extremely important to think critically about what you encounter, especially when it comes to misinformation that can appear on our social media feeds. We all need to do our best to filter out the noise and question what doesn’t make sense or just seems too good to be true.

Some things to think about when coming across an article or image that seems off: 

• Did the author cherry pick a line or phrase out of context to suit their story?
• Does the image look off (i.e. extra body parts or clothing that is oddly shaped)? 
• Does the person have an agenda in what they are trying to say?
• Are they selling you something?
• Are they trying to incite anger about an issue?
• Can you find this information from multiple sources? 

There are days where we will get duped, we just have to hope it's only from cute puppy videos rather than an incisive article or information that misleads us.