Internet, Scam and Fake News

Recently I had a conversation with my co-workers about “fake news” and problematic Facebook posts and how to identify them.

My co-workers and I are in our twenties and thirties, so all grew up with the internet itself. If I remember correctly, the first PC my parents owned was with Windows 98. My mother told me she knew that I was way better with the computer from the beginning on.

My co-workers and I agreed that for us it isn’t really hard to identify fake facebook lotteries, fake accounts and scam emails. But our parents have a hard time doing it.

I regularly find my father posting or sharing something on facebook that just can’t be true or that’s just really implausible.

As soon as I tell him that what he shared is wrong, he always asks me how I can identify such posts so easily.

Every time I have to tell him, that I don’t know. It is somehow just a feeling and normally after a quick search of the news you immediately find an article that warns about the scam.

I think that is similar to problem-solving. As soon as you fixed it, you don’t know how the fix came to your mind, it seems like it was always there.

I think we need some kind of protection for such scam or “fake news”. Be it software or education. The knowledge needs to be shared somehow.

Children are “well” protected from violence and pornography, if their parents know how to set up a router correctly, or if the control the videos their children see.

But people are not educated why it is bad to share that you’re away on holiday and meanwhile you’re house gets robbed.

There is no sensitivity built up in them. A sensitivity currently only the “younger” once and the people who deal with it every day.

And that was basically the end of the discussion. We didn’t come up with a fix, but maybe the next time.