The team running the ‘Facts’ project on Instagram is the ‘Memes Media Group’ which has a portfolio of more than 40 social brands with over 75 million followers, combined. Aside from the ‘Facts’ account, some of their other popular pages include ‘Memes,’ ‘Funny,’ ‘Guff,’ ‘Animal Memes,’ ‘Sarcasm Society,’ ‘Nostalgia,’ ‘Science,’ and ‘Cars.’
On Instagram alone, the ‘Facts’ account, which invites everyone to “enlighten yourself with facts,” has a solid following of 1.1 million internet users who check in for the most captivating, informative, and entertaining new posts.
Originally, the ‘Facts’ account was created back in May of 2015. Previously, it was known as ‘Facts by Guff.’
In this day and age, when the majority of the people living on our planet have access to the internet and social media, it’s more important than ever to prioritize media literacy. In a nutshell, media literacy is a skill that empowers people to navigate the news environment in such a way that they can make informed decisions.
Media literacy allows someone to critically analyze the stories and claims they find in the mass media in order to determine to what extent the information presented is accurate or credible. There is a vast gulf between objective facts and someone’s very subjective (and probably biased) opinion that masquerades as the truth.
A good rule of thumb is to always be at least slightly skeptical of anything you stumble across on social media. It’s good to be open-minded, but the other half of that coin is curiosity—the willingness to dig a little deeper into the topic instead of just taking the first claim you stumble across for granted.
In essence, you want to embody the philosophy of a scientist who wants to get as close to the truth as possible.
Generally, claims made online that are incredibly emotionally charged and sound far too good or bad to be true might present a biased perspective. Someone might have an agenda to promote certain ideas or opinions while ignoring other facts that contradict their narrative.
On the other hand, trustworthy sources will do their best to provide a fuller, nuanced, more complex picture of what’s going on.
Reliable, trustworthy news sources do their due diligence. They provide the sources they refer to so you can read them yourself, they correct any mistakes that they make, and they’re generally as transparent as possible. Meanwhile, the audience can and should double-check any iffy-sounding ‘facts’ online.
However checking every claim yourself can be very time-consuming, especially if you have other responsibilities in life (work, studies, family, etc.), so it’s usually best to focus on figuring out what media outlets are the most (un)reliable. And though everyone makes mistakes, reliable outlets have higher quality reporting and their reporters are willing to amend their articles if they have misrepresented the truth.
