The internet, though easy, efficient, and accessible, poses a major threat. That threat is misinformation.

Misinformation, for anyone who might be unaware, is exactly what it sounds like- misleading or incorrect information, especially that which is intended to deceive.

Misinformation is terrifyingly easy to spread, particularly in today's political climate where society jumps to aggressively pit people against each other and be angry rather than being informed. It is a very real problem, and also often overlooked.

Take this example. in 2018, Santa Fe High School fell victim to a tragic school shooting. A man by the name of David Briscoe painted himself as a substitute teacher who was supposedly teaching a remedial English class in the school at the time of the shooting. In other words, he represented himself as a witness, and an affected person.

Fast forward to today and it turns out that actually, David Briscoe never had any relation to the school. Actually, his real name isn't even David Briscoe, and he absolutely was not present when tragedy struck.

This man lived a false life for nearly a year, using an extremely tragic and traumatizing situation to catch the public eye and acquire the satisfaction of being a "hero", his lies only having been uncovered when the Texas Tribune investigated the claims he made to news outlets.

So, yeah. A completely random, uninvolved man got away with pretending to be a school shooting witness. For a year. No one questioned him. No one looked into it. And now we find out it was all a lie.

Keeping this in mind, who's to say things like this aren't happening all around us, all the time? In fact, they sure as hell are.

Media thrives off of tabloids, "clickbait" headlines, and amplifications of reality. What's more is that the majority of our media and news sources, outlets, and channels do not maintain neutrality, and therefore end up feeding us one-sided or biased stories... some of which we may not even recognize as such.

I was fortunate enough to have been specifically educated about these issues in a high school course taught by a woman who was determined to ensure that today's youth wouldn't be blindsided. I was fortunate enough to be sat down and forced to face the reality of "fake news", one-sided reporting, fact-checking.. you name it. If it had not been for the high school teacher who pushed her students to catapult change in the most educated way possible, I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this.

Unfortunately, though, many people aren't taught about the dangers of misinformation and biased media. Many people come into politics not really aware of the extent of the deceit they are plunging into. If I influence one single person, or teach one single person something they weren't aware of, as a result of my writing, I will be happy. We as a community cannot afford to be deceived. We cannot afford to be made infuriated by falsity. We cannot afford for our information to be fake.

We are living in an extremely polarized political world. We are living amidst anger, strife, absence of human rights, and most importantly, change.

Whether that change is for the better or the worse is yet to be determined.