With the rampant conspiracy theories that have taken over the internet lately, from Qanon’s Save Our Children distraction to the theory that anarchists are setting fire to the American West Coast, there is one thing we have seen in common: Memes that attack the Mainstream Media for not sharing these stories.
No doubt, you have seen many memes that ask something along the lines of ‘Why is the government keeping us in the dark?’ or ‘Why is the Mainstream Media not reporting on this?’ The real question should be, ‘Am I being kept in the dark, or am I falling prey to the manipulations of the conspiracy theorists?
There have been a growing number of blogs on the internet that are dressed up like a news site and which claim to be an alternate voice of the news. Most of us can now (hopefully) accept that Alex Jones and InfoWars as the fake news generators that they were, but a lot of people have been following his lead and so we are now finding more and more websites pop up in that same style. For those not savvy with the media and how the internet works, the instinct might be to believe whatever you read if it looks like a newspaper.
This disinformation campaign has become so successful, that we’ve seen a bit increase in the number of people who tell us that they don’t get their news from any traditional source any longer. One bit of consistent feedback we had from our recent research survey was that people didn’t trust any of the news sources that we asked if they would consider getting their news from. And this wasn’t limited to a certain age demographic; it was very widespread across those who participated.
A common theme lately has been to take a photo, usually that of a police officer or a small child, slap some text on it about the tragic story to do with the person in that photo, and then scream that the mainstream media’s silence on the matter is sickening. Sometimes the story is genuine, but there’s a reason why you haven’t heard about it.
Here’s an example: This week, there is a meme going around in connection to the Save Our Children stuff that’s doing the rounds. The text says, ‘123 children found in Michigan! Media SILENT! Why is this not a huge story?’
Is your natural emotion when reading that to get angry and to share it with all your friends on social media? If so, it only proves that the people who make these memes know how to play you. And if you’ve shared it, you’ve been played.
Because if you do a Google search on ‘123 children found in Michigan,’ you will find that it was indeed a very big news story. In 2018, when it was news.
Don’t believe us? Look it up on Google! Go on, do it! And you will find that every major American news network did indeed cover the story.
How could we have forgotten a story about 123 children being sex trafficked from 2018?
Well, if that was the question you’ve asked yourself, then we’re afraid that you’re still being played. While the Michigan police and federal rangers did question the children about sex trafficking, only three of the 123 children feel into that category. The rest were either runaway children or children who were with non-custodial parents. This wasn’t some big Pizzagate story. This had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell. This does not prove the Qanon conspiracy theory is right. This was an old story about missing children being found in a one day investigative push.
But we are well aware that this won’t go away. So long as people know how to manipulate the emotions of others, people will continue doing just that.
So, what can you do about it?
Simply try to calmly and rationally look at the information you’re being presented with and do some quick research yourself.
Look how easy it was to find the answer about the 123 children in Michigan! If everyone who saw that meme did that, or if everyone who posted that meme had a friend who looked it up and tried to steer their friend in the right direction, we would probably see less of that sort of thing.
There is also a trick you can do with photos that get shared by doing a Reverse Image Lookup, which we will discuss in more depth in the future. Simply drag and drop the photo from social media into Google Images, and you’ll be able to find all sorts of articles about that specific photo. We often find by doing this that people are getting angry at not hearing about a news story right this instant which was covered at length upwards of six months ago.
The people who posted these time-sensitive memes are counting on the fact that you’ve forgotten about the news story. With the crazy news cycle that we’ve been living in for the last few years, it is easy for well-reported stories to get buried because we’re so distracted by all the other noise around us. The important thing for right now is to not let these memes become more of the noise. There are too many important things to focus on right now which are being drowned out by so much fake news, and that’s exactly how some people would like it to be.
On a side note, we would like to congratulate San Francisco’s ABC affiliate Channel 7 for adding a fake news roundup to their news report. No doubt there were be plenty of conspiracy theorists who will say that this is more propaganda from the left-wing establishment elites who are trying to hide the truth, but if more news outlets could address the fake stories, show how they are fake, and move on, it is possible that maybe, just maybe, some people will learn from this and will stop spreading the fake news and help their friends and family do the same.
If ignorance can spread so easily, maybe we can do the same with a bit of knowledge?
Don't Believe Everything That You Meme 