While it was mostly well received, someone has recently referred to it (during a much wider explanation of my character flaws down to 10 decimal places) as me arrogantly telling people to do a lot of work, before posting something which is, after all, for my benefit.
I want to address this here.
First of all, unless said image is posted on my wall, it isn't "For my benefit" - It's for the "benefit" of your entire list - looking quickly down my freinds, that means 100-500 people... let's say 300 people for arguments sake.
Secondly, I don't think that misinformation (especially scary misinformation) benefits anyone.
My detractors original point, I believe, is basically
"Someone is trying to help you - fact check it yourself instead of expecting them to do it, you arrogant sod."
Now I disagree with this, but can kind-of see their point... if the image had been sent only to me; but as I've pointed out it's been sent to hundreds of people.so now thier objection becomes
"Do you seriously expect one person to fact check before hitting 'send' when 300 people could so easily fact check it for themselves when they recieve it? How arrogant!".
So yes, I do expect one person to spend 60 seconds on a simple task, rather than see 300 people perform the exact same task... but I'm not sure that's arrogant. To the contrary, I think expecting 300 people to do what you could not be bothered to do yourself is pretty much the dictionary definition of arrogant!
Now, sometimes you'll drop the ball on this, I know I do... sometimes confirmation bias is too tempting, or a story too much fun, and we get carried away; I'm not about to pretend this will never happen, or even that I will never do it myself - but I don't think that's an excuse to not at least try to remember.
And there are exceptions; sometimes its a warning that seems important, and we aren't in a position to check right now (maybe using your phone for instance) - maybe a good policy there would be to mention that it's un-checked when posting it?
Just a though.
