Commentary: It’s time to step back from social media lies and embrace credible news

For as long as there has been war, there have been those who seek to confuse, obfuscate and lie about it by spreading wrong information.

The most recent wars are no different. 

However, what’s new this decade is the overwhelming presence of social media and the sheer volume of text, pictures, audio, and video spread through those platforms – at hyper speed, and in real time.

Much of what you see on social platforms is at best, unverified. At worst, just lies. And in the middle, loads of confusion.

At CHCH News, we encourage our viewers and readers to look at what you see on social media with a critical eye, the same way we do here; to question whether or not what you are seeing is real; to seek out credible news sources who invest in digging for facts.

That’s where we come in.

What you can count on at CHCH News and from other legitimate news companies is that we have an experienced, talented, motivated team of journalists working hard every day to find out the facts for you. We dig. We verify. We do the work.

Of course, CHCH doesn’t have national or overseas bureaus, so we think it’s important for you to know we rely upon other strong, talented news teams at Reuters, CNN, Associated Press and Canadian Press to help with our coverage. They dig. They verify. They do the work, too.

We’re also bound by journalistic ethics which drives us constantly to seek the truth – and we encourage you to hold us to account as well. Question us, send us comments, kudos or criticisms.

Social media platforms, on the other hand, are bound by no ethics and allow lies, hate and disinformation to flourish and grow so that the flow of billions of dollars remains uninterrupted. Their algorithms mine your attention in a way that rewards and encourages lies, hate and disinformation and unlike trusted news sources, they don’t want to hear from you and generally make it impossible to speak with them.

In fact, as we and others have reported, they allow some of their paying advertisers to actively seek to rob their users and allow criminals to steal credit card information after they’ve stolen brands like ours. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it because those platforms just don’t care about its users. We’ve complained directly to them, to tell them our brands have been stolen and their own users are being robbed. They do not respond – or they tell us the criminal activity does “not violate their community guidelines.”

Who wants to be a part of a community where its owners say it’s okay to steal? Where lies and disinformation are rewarded? Social media platforms simply can’t be trusted. Not with your money, not with your time, and especially not as a source for news.

The irony here, of course, is that CHCH still posts its news stories to social media, despite the platforms’ reckless, monopolistic behaviour and terrible, unethical choices.

Why? Because so many of our viewers and readers are there – and we want to reach you with trustworthy, valuable news, wherever you might be looking for it. We try, however we can, to push aside the rapidly rising tide of garbage – a growing amount of it faked with artificial intelligence – with news our journalists have verified.

We and other news organizations want to be here for you for a long time, but we can only do that with your help. Watch our news, read our news, engage with us. Do less doom-scrolling through your social feeds and come find us and other legitimate news on air, on our websites, in our newsletters, and streaming. 

We work for you and now more than ever, we need you.

Greg O’Brien is news director at CHCH.