News & community

How sharing false and distorted information on the internet contributes to a divided world

On Wednesday, as I do most days, I logged onto Facebook and scrolled through my news feed. I was stopped dead in my tracks by this post that two of my Facebook friends had shared:

Live animal keychains Facebook post

The posts linked to a petition on Change.org that had attracted tens of thousands of signatures:

Live animal keychains petition

The posts quickly attracted comments of strong condemnation, as well as further shares. The reason that the Facebook posts immediately attracted my attention is that I had seen a similar LinkedIn post and associated petition around three years ago, in December 2013. The post had been made by an administrator of the “Biodiversity Professionals” group on LinkedIn, who had also created the associated petition:

Live animal keychains LinkedIn post

While this week’s Facebook posts said that the live animal keychains could be found on “the streets of China”, the 2013 LinkedIn post insinuated that the animal abuse being perpetrated through the keychains was a cultural practice. The associated petition then described the keychains as the “new fashion jewelry in China.”

But is this true? I have lived in China since April 2012, and before that traveled extensively in China from 2007. Despite visiting many places and interacting with numerous people, I have yet to see these keychains being sold or anyone with one in their possession. Asking around, none of my Chinese friends or colleagues has seen them either, and they have indicated that if they did see them then they would be outraged. While such keychains do appear to have existed, they are a long way from the widespread phenomena suggested by the Facebook and LinkedIn posts and associated petitions.

In sharing these posts and signing the associated petitions, people have both responded to and perpetuated negative stereotypes in regard to the behaviour of people in China in comparison to people in western countries. This adds to the creation of unnecessary divisions between western countries and China.

A further example can be found in an email I received in mid-2014. The email had the subject of “A day at the beach in China !!” and contained a series of pictures of a crowded beach. It began with the following text and picture:

a_day_at_the_beach_in_chinaThe email finished with comments suggesting that such a crowd would lead to problems, in particular unclean toilet behaviour:

A day at the beach in China

However, the information in the email is false. The picture above is an immediate giveaway to anyone with reasonable observational skills, with the language on the beach umbrellas being Korean, and not Chinese. An examination of features in the other photos reveals the beach to be Haeundae Beach in Busan, South Korea.

Again, in sharing this email, people have both responded to and perpetuated negative stereotypes in regard to the behaviour of people in China in comparison to people in western countries. As was the case with the live animal keychain posts and petitions, the email adds to the creation of unnecessary divisions between western countries and China.

Think before you share!

To help reduce the circulation of false and distorted information on the internet, and to help prevent the divisions it causes, please check out the validity of the information you are sharing before you share it. If it’s not true, delete it and ask the sender to advise other readers or recipients to do the same.

5/5 - (1 vote)

Also published on Medium.

Bruce Boyes

Bruce Boyes is a knowledge management (KM), environmental management, and education thought leader with more than 40 years of experience. As editor and lead writer of the award-winning RealKM Magazine, he has personally written more than 500 articles and published more than 2,000 articles overall, resulting in more than 2 million reader views. With a demonstrated ability to identify and implement innovative solutions to social and ecological complexity, Bruce has successfully completed more than 40 programs, projects, and initiatives including leading complex major programs. His many other career highlights include: leading the KM community KM and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) initiative, using agile approaches to oversee the on time and under budget implementation of an award-winning $77.4 million recovery program for one of Australia's most iconic river systems, leading a knowledge strategy process for Australia’s 56 natural resource management (NRM) regional organisations, pioneering collaborative learning and governance approaches to empower communities to sustainably manage landscapes and catchments in the face of complexity, being one of the first to join a new landmark aviation complexity initiative, initiating and teaching two new knowledge management subjects at Shanxi University in China, and writing numerous notable environmental strategies, reports, and other works. Bruce is currently a PhD candidate in the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group at Wageningen University and Research, and holds a Master of Environmental Management with Distinction and a Certificate of Technology (Electronics). As well as his work for RealKM Magazine, Bruce currently also teaches in the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) Certified High-school Pathway (CHP) program in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China.

Related Articles

Back to top button