#findingfacts

Perhaps the easiest and most understandable definition for Net Neutrality that I have been able to find was posted by PublicKnowledge.org. It states, “Net Neutrality is the principle that the company that connects you to the internet does not get to control what you do on the internet.” This means that Verizon, or Comcast, or AT&T - or whoever your internet provider is - does not have the legal means of stopping you from finding any information you desire on the internet ; nor do they have the legal power to slow down their competition sites and information.

Yet the way in which consumers use this advantage is not always so productive. Many people will consume information directly from knowingly fake and/or biased news sites, and completely disregard the political agenda going on behind the scenes.

Let’s take FoxNews for instance.

Back in November, Phillip Bump for The Washington Post said, “Fox News [was] trusted for information on the pandemic nearly as much as outlets like NPR and MSNBC, but those who trust it embrace conspiracy theories at the level of someone who watches OAN or Newsmax. In other words, it sits at a unique nexus of having both broad trust and an audience that widely believes false claims.”

Fox News was actually the one of the only mainstream medias to push the idea that the Presidential Election was stolen, and having an audience that embraces such conspiracies made it incredibly easy for them to push this non-truth, and for it to gain an intense momentum.

…now, granted, The Washington Post also has its own agenda - as does every media - and each of them possess their own series of faults. The most important thing though, is for us as consumers to understand what is real, and what is not - and how we can double check the stories we are seeing, in order to find the facts hidden in the lies. The way that we access different information will always influence the light we find that information inside of. If we learn all of our news from hyperbolic, and biased sources - then we never have the true story. At least, not the full truth…

If I could give one piece of advice to help people become more Media Literate it’s this… Cross Reference Everything! - Even if the site you get your news from is reputable, and trusted ; check another. …and then check a third. Make sure all the information matches before you go spreading half truths, and total fictions.