Think twice about spreading just any old news

It is a sadly ironic aspect of social media that the people who proclaim loudest that they can’t trust the “MSM” (mainstream media) are the ones who put their trust in the wildest sort of illogical fake news on the internet.

And the Covid-19 threat and the measures taken to slow the spread of the virus have been a golden opportunity for the tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists to start spreading alarmist rubbish.

Flavour of the month in the past fortnight has been “The Chinese are invading!” type of posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Using photos of Chinese military parades in their own country, blended together with images from Chinese military visitors to South Africa some years ago, these are shared with shrieking questions along the lines of “What are they doing here?” and “What’s going on?”

The answer to that second question is, simply: You’re dim and you’re gullible.

The latest “expose” purported to show “tanks” being delivered here under the cover of darkness. The photos were taken in Namibia and were of armoured vehicles being imported for the Botswana Defence Force.

One day, that sort of fake news is going to get people hurt, or killed. So think twice about spreading it.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.