What you see on Twitter might not be true or accurate. Before you retweet something, ask yourself this question: “Am I absolutely sure I am not spreading incorrect information?”

Here are a few instances where what was shared on Twitter was incorrect:

The list can go on longer. It might have also included false tweets accusing people of child abuse, police officers abusing the public and so on. The Internet is no stranger to this stuff. We also know that inaccurate information is spread offline as well.

What we need to ask ourselves, when we get this hot information is this, “Is it accurate?” Now I am not saying that we all have to become fact checkers. But we should look at what is before us and quickly search the main news networks. False reports can create unintended trouble for those that are the attention of the tweet, for example.

Some things get shared that never should have been shared. I know we love to share things with those around us and talk about it. But if it is not true and it could be hurtful, why are we sharing this information?

I once back tracked a series of tweets on an incident that was incorrectly reported on Twitter. The source was an eager news reporter trying to get a scoop and push the story forward. The reporter pushed the story hard, even though they did not have the complete info. They never checked with authorities to confirm either. Once the other news stations got all the info, they were quick to correct inaccurate information. I question the ethics of the reporter pushing out the tweets.

I want to encourage you to always think about what you pass along. If you are not sure, let the tweet reflect that. You might ask for confirmation. We have to remember not to push incorrect info off as fact; especially on Twitter.