Truthiness

"The problem with internet quotes is that you cant always depend on their accuracy" 

- Abraham Lincoln, 1864

This snarky comment has been floating around cyberspace for several years. And yet, with every passing day, it seems to be even more a reliable indicator of where we are as a technology-driven communications society.

Today, we see this happening in at least two high-profile situations: on social media like Facebook, where a variety of hoaxes are posted and accepted as the gospel by thousands of users; and the 2016 presidential campaign, where despite the media’s ability to respond to less-than-factual comments more quickly than in years past.

One variation of this year’s Facebook hoax - yes, it’s an annual tradition, like Halloween and Santa Claus and hurricane season in Florida - reads, in part: “Better safe then sorry! Now it's official! It has been published in the media. Facebook has just released the entry price: $5.99 to keep the subscription of your status to be set to ‘private.’ If you paste this message on your page, it will be offered free (paste not share) if not tomorrow, all your posts can become public. Even the messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed.”

The hoax includes a fictitious news report from a “Channel 13 News,” as well as various purported federal laws and the Rome Statute, as further “proof” of the post’s “legitimacy.”

Savvy Facebook users end up posting status updates mocking the hoax, but it still happens like clockwork.

Then there’s the political arena. Despite fact-checking sites like PolitiFact (http://www.politifact.com/), which do their best to determine which political comments are “True” (Mike Huckabee’s claim that six of the 10 wealthiest U.S. counties surround Washington, D.C.) and which achieve “Pants on Fire” status (example: Donald Trump’s claim this week that unemployment hit 42%), too often once less-than-honest comments are made, it is impossible to fully reverse the damage. Too often, individuals on either side of the political aisle accept their chosen (or, at least, preferred) leader’s words as the Gospel, and are reluctant to admit anything inaccurate was stated. And while individuals with opposing viewpoints howl at the moon about the situation, rarely does it impact what has transpired.

We can also see such questionable use of facts surrounding the current Planned Parenthood saga, where individuals on each side of the politically-charged topic have the ability to pick and choose which pieces of information to rally around and which to ignore. In fact, take any “hot button” topic coming out of Washington, D.C. these days - Benghazi, gay rights, immigration reform, public education, the national debt, legalization of drugs, Syrian refugees - and this phenomenon will occur.

Fans of The Colbert Report can point to the October 17, 2005 pilot episode, where the host coined the word “truthiness,” described as a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Nearly 10 years later, the word - and definition - still stand as a modern conveyance of the phrase “don’t let your facts get in the way of my opinion.”

Honest Abe would be proud to know his Internet quote is more honest than many of the comments it describes.