Why you should read the date on any social media item before sharing it
There has been something of an epidemic on social media of sharing things which are long past their sell-by-date.
Last week someone who I would have expected to know better shared an article which the Guardian had published ten years ago, about of a story which was already twenty-three years old when the Guardian published it in 2009, about something a prominent politician of today had written when he was in his early twenties.
As it happens I met the individual the article was about back when we were both students. I did not have a high opinion of him then and I do not have a high opinion of him now. But his views and actions have changed enormously over the past three decades and although in my humble opinion there are plenty of good reasons to disagree with the positions he has taken, a stupid article he wrote in a magazine thirty years ago in his early twenties is not prominent among them.
I've also had one of my own social media posts from three years ago shared in a manner which put it on completely the wrong side.
Leave.EU which is of course a pro-Brexit campaign group, was arguing that a proposed EU treaty with the USA referred to as TTIP (for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,) might result in the privatisation of the NHS.
I wrote an article on this blog here which explained why I thought that view was wrong and tweeted a short summary and link.
In that piece I quoted statements made at the time by Michael Froman who was then the United States Trade Representative, which reflected the views of the Obama administration in 2016 but certainly do not reflect what the Trump administration says now.
I linked to a debate in parliament in 2014 which had covered the possible impact of TTIP on the NHS and quoted the speech made on the subject by Ken Clarke who was then the responsible minister.
I quoted the EU's published guidelines and safeguards stating their negotiating position for TTIP.
All these points were explicitly about the proposed EU/US treaty.
The main thing I said in my 2016 post which is still relevant to the debate in 2019 about any agreement which the UK might sign with the USA after Brexit was that if the Leave side won and Britain leaves the EU. quote:
"... it is probable that we would then have exactly the same arguments about the terms of the hypothetical bilateral Britain/USA trade deal which we would then need to negotiate that we are currently having about the proposed EU and America TTIP deal."
That prediction is indeed largely coming true, and indeed, my original tweet is now being shared as part of precisely the arguments I predicted.
Indeed, a tweet written as a reply to Leave.EU is now taking "friendly fire" from Remainers who appear to wrongly assume it is about the sort of treaty which a post-Brexit UK might negotiate with the USA.
It is certainly worth a double facepalm to see things I wrote in 2016 about TTIP, and which were accurate at the time as statements about that proposed treaty, now being shared on social media in 2019 as if they were a current view about a completely different treaty.
The moral of this story is always check the date of anything you see on social media! Especially do so before you share it, either in agreement or otherwise.
Last week someone who I would have expected to know better shared an article which the Guardian had published ten years ago, about of a story which was already twenty-three years old when the Guardian published it in 2009, about something a prominent politician of today had written when he was in his early twenties.
As it happens I met the individual the article was about back when we were both students. I did not have a high opinion of him then and I do not have a high opinion of him now. But his views and actions have changed enormously over the past three decades and although in my humble opinion there are plenty of good reasons to disagree with the positions he has taken, a stupid article he wrote in a magazine thirty years ago in his early twenties is not prominent among them.
I've also had one of my own social media posts from three years ago shared in a manner which put it on completely the wrong side.
Leave.EU which is of course a pro-Brexit campaign group, was arguing that a proposed EU treaty with the USA referred to as TTIP (for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,) might result in the privatisation of the NHS.
I wrote an article on this blog here which explained why I thought that view was wrong and tweeted a short summary and link.
In that piece I quoted statements made at the time by Michael Froman who was then the United States Trade Representative, which reflected the views of the Obama administration in 2016 but certainly do not reflect what the Trump administration says now.
I linked to a debate in parliament in 2014 which had covered the possible impact of TTIP on the NHS and quoted the speech made on the subject by Ken Clarke who was then the responsible minister.
I quoted the EU's published guidelines and safeguards stating their negotiating position for TTIP.
All these points were explicitly about the proposed EU/US treaty.
The main thing I said in my 2016 post which is still relevant to the debate in 2019 about any agreement which the UK might sign with the USA after Brexit was that if the Leave side won and Britain leaves the EU. quote:
"... it is probable that we would then have exactly the same arguments about the terms of the hypothetical bilateral Britain/USA trade deal which we would then need to negotiate that we are currently having about the proposed EU and America TTIP deal."
That prediction is indeed largely coming true, and indeed, my original tweet is now being shared as part of precisely the arguments I predicted.
Indeed, a tweet written as a reply to Leave.EU is now taking "friendly fire" from Remainers who appear to wrongly assume it is about the sort of treaty which a post-Brexit UK might negotiate with the USA.
It is certainly worth a double facepalm to see things I wrote in 2016 about TTIP, and which were accurate at the time as statements about that proposed treaty, now being shared on social media in 2019 as if they were a current view about a completely different treaty.
The moral of this story is always check the date of anything you see on social media! Especially do so before you share it, either in agreement or otherwise.
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