By signing, you are making this resolution:
"Before sharing any information seen on social media, I will verify and include an accountable source for any claimed facts."
[This is not a traditional petition going to some politician begging for a policy change; it is simply a public record of individuals committing to do their part this year to combat misinformation.]
PROBLEM:
21st century society has been suffering from massive issues of misinformation, mistrust, and social division.
People on both the Left and Right have developed a habit of believing and sharing information that agrees with their own bias, while assuming that anything they disagree with is "false news".
SOLUTION:
One key step to moving forward is building a culture of information accountability.
...That starts with us as individuals.
While people may disagree on who exactly is trustworthy, we should at least agree that claims of truth require evidence, and that evidence requires more than one person's claim.
No one person has the authority on Truth, but if you cannot provide specific evidence (beyond anecdote) for your claim, then it is mere conjecture and should not be presented as anything else.
Spreading this resolution is not a panacea for society's info ills. However, building a norm of checking and including sources would prevent the most flagrant spreading of blatant misinformation.
RESOURCES:
Websites to bookmark for help verifying sources:
How to Fact Check (and source of image above): https://abqlibrary.org/fakenews/factcheck
-Evaluating Digital Sources: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/evaluating_sources_of_information/evaluating_digital_sources.html
-How to Spot Fake News checklist: https://library.csi.cuny.edu/c.php?g=619342&p=4376665
-Fact-checking websites: https://library.csi.cuny.edu/c.php?g=619342&p=4310783
Less-biased news sources lists:
-https://towardsdatascience.com/how-statistically-biased-is-our-news-f28f0fab3cb3
-https://my.lwv.org/california/torrance-area/article/how-reliable-your-news-source-understanding-media-bias-2021
-https://www.makeuseof.com/top-unbiased-news-sources
