Headlines

The original internet was in the bibliography of books.

You read something interesting in a book, followed the footnote to the bibliography, then went to read that book. So on and so forth. You actually learned something.

The real internet has made this process easier. Yet, most people only read headlines. Headlines claiming that climate change is not real, that vaccinations are bad for you, that Elvis is still alive, and that the Earth is flat. And people Tweet those headlines, and re-Tweet them.

Next time you come across one of these articles, look for the source links (i.e. the bibliography). You probably won’t find any. If you do, you’ll soon see how unreliable they are, pointing only to other articles without sources.