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A good rule of thumb is that the most viral stories aren’t accurate. Why? Because in order for something to go viral it has to be cartoonish enough to perfectly trigger everyone’s confirmation bias, and reality is always messy.
This is just a rule of thumb, but you can spot a real story because everyone will say it contains a lot of “twists.” Yeah, because reality always does. Real journalists know that stories get more complicated the more you dig. If it sounds like a cartoon it’s a hoax or propaganda.
Even the most cartoonishly evil story I can think off—Dylann Roof’s massacre of black churchgoers here in Charleston, including a friend of mine—had elements you wouldn’t expect, like how he had a black friend who said he never said anything racist. Realty is weird.
So when I read a story, I try to look for at least one “inconvenient fact,” something that seems weird or counter-intuitive. Sometimes people seize on that to discredit the story, it the opposite is true. That usually means the person didn’t make it up.
Man this thread has a lot of typos, which is actually my clever way of proving its authenticity, and not because I’m on 3 hours of sleep.
