Practice good information hygiene by sifting social media

Alex Howard
2 min readSep 22, 2020

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Offline, we wash our hands so we don’t catch or pass on a disease. We emphasize physical hygiene to our kids.

Online, we need to practice information hygiene and teach everyone how to use social media responsibly, just as we do cars, guns, water, & fire.

It takes 20 seconds to wash your hands properly.
It takes 20 seconds to check info before you share an update.

How? SIFT” the content.

Stop.
Investigate the source.
Find better coverage.
Trace claims, quotes, & media to original context.

Whether we wash our hands or scrub our feed of viral misinformation, we can stop the spread to our friends, families, & communities as others become vectors for infection.

The more social interactions someone has, the more responsibility they have not to pass on a disease.

The bigger a platform someone has, the more responsibility they hold. (Mark Zuckerberg, for example.)

But this isn’t just about media in 2020: every politician & member of the public has to help.

Always verify before you trust or amplify.

Deny lies oyxgen.

Attention & trust are 2 of the most precious commodities today.

Whether it’s algorithms suggesting politicians & content, taking $ for ads, running op-eds, or broadcasting a tsunami of lies or a protest live, tech companies, media, & the public all give speech reach.

What we amplify or damp shows our ethics.

Please don’t pass on disinformation or

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Alex Howard

Dad, writer, citizen, chef, cyclist, skeptical optimist, cereal dilettante. Open government advocate at E-PluribusUnum.org.
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