by Steve Moore • July 2017
It doesn’t take long on the Internet, your email or your social media to be convinced that fake news and cyber bullies are a part of the technological landscape for some time to come. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with a colleague from the University of Florida to talk about what to do regarding hate groups that persist in circulating fake news.
We have all seen fake news coming from the White House, major news outlets and special interest groups whose mission seems to be to spread it.
This short video is a helpful framing of a thoughtful response to such cyber bullying.
Jim Daley recently blogged that cyber bullying is growing even more sinister as groups hide their identities and use social media to harass, spread false information and misrepresent organizations and individuals. He urges all of us to be diligent in educating, ignoring and sometimes confronting those who spread hate and lies that undermine the social fabric. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to such efforts.
Pete Wehner, a writer for The New York Times, recently had a terrific piece in The Atlantic calling on us to challenge our friends to not spread misinformation.
There are too many good things happening and heroic efforts being made to do the right thing in our world to spend our time on cyber junk. We should tell and retell the great stories of individuals, groups and communities who are changing the world for the better and seeking to strengthen the fabric of our culture, not pick at it.
Here are a few stories that continue to encourage me as I do my work.
Steve Moore is executive director of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
