…while the truth is about 22 minutes behind…
The original quote, by Mark Twain, is "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."
Not true anymore, in this era of Social Media.
The original title I considered for this post was, "Will Social Media End Lying?" The problem is, I have the ready answer. No. The better question is, will it change lying as we know it? Yes, and it's already having that effect. Unfortunately, there's still a huge contingent out there who didn't get the memo. Yet.
This process was well illustrated during the recent political conventions. The cycle between one of our major politicians lying, the lie being refuted (in this particular example, via Twitter), then the campaign issuing a "correction" was less than 30 minutes.
This sure ain't the old days. That would be circa 2008…
That's why to me, the question is, "Will Social Media…" as opposed to, "Has Social Media…". Perhaps there'll be a little more truth in politics.
Now that's change I can believe in…