This post is not meant to be preachy or condescending, but it may sound like it a little. I hope not, though, because I really just want people to think about this. My hope is for awareness and maybe an “aha” moment or two. 😊🤔👍
For a long time now, I have wondered about Facebook posts that say, “copy and paste this, don’t share.” It really is starting to bother me for several reasons.
One, we teach kids in school and try to reinforce it all the time NOT to copy and paste without giving credit. We don’t want our students to plagiarize. We want them to do one of two things: either give proper credit to words and ideas Or, USE. YOUR. OWN. VOICE!
So, why do the originators of some of these Facebook posts want you to just copy and paste but not share? Sharing, of course, shows that you got the information from somewhere else, that someone else wrote it or created it. A reader can figure out from where it came. That’s a good thing. Back to copy and paste. In many of these posts, the word “I” is used. The posts are often fairly long. (Here is the second reason these “requests to copy and paste posts“ bother me.) I am guessing that it is intended to make people think that whoever copied and pasted it also wrote it. That is an awful concept to keep promoting, IMHO, as a school librarian who has worked hard for many years to get our students NOT to do this sort of thing. As adults, we need to practice this.
If people want to express an opinion, that is fine. Do it! You have the right to do just that. But, write it yourself or just stop the “copying and pasting” and share the darned thing so others know you didn’t write it. It’s the honest thing, the right thing to do. There often are many bits of misleading information, assumptions, stereotyping, name-calling, etc. in these posts. This might help to resolve some of this. Now, I know that some of the requests are for support of good causes: people with cancers and other serious health issues, social injustices which are true, and other good stuff. But, honestly, does it make a difference to the people you want to help that you share, rather than copy and paste? I can’t believe it would matter ~ the support is what matters!
Occasionally people send me a “copy and paste” post with a request to do the same. I just politely say “no,” and explain why. Here is the third thing about these posts that bothers me: There are some of these posts that also originated as clickbait and phishing posts, meant for people not to read in their entirety, but just to stir enough emotion for the post to be shared. Clickbait is just not good. The originators don’t want people to check the information, they just want us to share it...ahhhh! Of course, sadly, most people don’t think about factchecking their posts, but that’s a whole other issue for another time.
Maybe we could all try and stop this sort of posting: share, give credit, or speak your own truth and opinion. As we work through this pandemic and upcoming election it might just help. One last request, even though it is constantly modeled by some of our so-called leaders, how about if we stop the name-calling? There is so much great language, must we always go so low?
