Telephone

Social media isn't much difference from any other source of information, except for the fact that pretty much anyone can provide that information, regardless of their qualifications, or the source of their information.

Take this snippet about travel writer Rick Steves helping a local foundation that runs a hygiene center for homeless people a bit north of here, in Lynnwood, Washington:

While the broad strokes of the story are roughly correct, the only details that are accurate are the fact that Mr. Steves spent $2.25 million and that it was the best $2.25 million he could imagine spending.

• The hygiene center was not in Seattle. It is, as I noted above, in Lynnwood, which is one of the northern suburbs. Seattle has a number of hygiene centers of its own.
• Mr. Steves did not purchase the center. He purchased the property that housed it, which it had been allowed to use rent-free until the previous owner sold it. The center was, and still is, run by a local foundation, and can still operate rent-free.
• Renovations and expansion were paid for by further donations from the community, and it was already serving about 700 people.

Still an inspiring story? Sure. But that's kind of the point... an accurate telling of the story is just as inspiring. It's still a good thing done for the community.

In any event, the purpose of this blog post isn't to complain that someone screwed up the details of what is, for me, a local story. It's to note how quickly it happened. The events recounted here are less than a year old at this point.

I doubt that the narrative was changed due to any sort of deliberate intention to misinform people about what happened. I'm sure that part of it came from squeezing the whole things down to just 35 words. But it's interesting to see how a story can change in this way, and how quickly the social media machine will make changes to things. Interestingly, the post where I saw this picture had the story correct, so I'm not sure why the author went with a picture with such clear errors.

But maybe that's how this happens... people don't really read through things like this, even when they are presenting them to other people.