A Checklist for Social Media Posts

Social Media is abuzz with activity these days with the current burning issue in the country, each one of us is busy is posting our opinion, forwarding posts, commenting on them, answering the comments, and on and on. It looks like everyone has something to say about it. During the day, you and I get hundreds of posts. How do we decide which post to ignore and which to forward? Can there be a checklist to help us decide?

Let me tell you an interesting story before answering this question:

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to be very wise and knowledgeable. One day someone met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Hold on a minute", Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter test."

"Triple Filter?"

"That's right" Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No", the man said,"Actually I just heard about it and ..."

"All right", Socrates said,"So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are going to tell me about my friend, something good?"

"No, on the contrary.."

"So", Socrates continued, "You want to tell me something bad about him, but you are not certain that it is true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful for me?"

"No, not really ..."

"Well, concluded Socrates,"if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The checklist that we want is hidden in the above story, let us subject each post to this three point checklist:

☑ Do we know if it is true or is it just a hearsay?
☑ Does it say something good about someone?
☑ Is it useful?

And then as Socrates said, if it is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why would you want to inflict it on your friends? Just ignore it and move on.