Since the 2016 election, we’ve heard a good deal about fake news.  Bogus sources seem to spring up overnight.  Even Gig data can’t be trusted.  Click)  How do we tell the news from propaganda in this environment?  With 2.2 billion users sharing information on Faceboo

I have a friend who thinks whatever appears on YouTube must be true.  Though a sensible woman in all other respects, she thrives on conspiracy theories, and YouTube abounds in them. There, she can find fake news on the cabal to poison our water systems; a threat to destroy organic fo

My father taught me the difference between truth and a lie when I was five.  The story begins with a teddy bear, a tiny, plastic ornament that hung at the end of my toothbrush. I loved to watch it in the bathroom mirror, bouncing up and down as I cleaned my teeth.  One day, the tedd

Just as science and art have long debated the social consequences of their activities, (Blog 2/10/17), it’s time for technology, the Sixth Estate, to grapple with its responsibility. Not only are its innovations transforming society, but they are doing so faster than in the past, ef

My Yahoo news page came up with the following headline, recently: “Bernie Sanders followers are among the smartest…  They don’t believe anything.  The post must have proof…”   I didn’t read further. I’m not a Bernie Sanders fan, though some of my Facebook friends hav

Donald Trump’s truth varies minute by minute.  It’s like listening to Variations of a Theme of Paganini but less pleasant. Trump doesn’t seem to worry about these variations, which his critics call lies. Rather, he twists the truth, I suspect, to convince his subjects that one

Recently, a woman on Facebook admitted she received most of her news from social media.  If true, she is making a couple of mistakes.  First, she is  foreclosing on ideas outside her narrow group of like-minded friends.  Second, she’s vulnerable to fake news, much of it propagan