Fayemi: How To Educate Yourself Before Sharing Articles On Facebook Like A F*ckin’ Doof

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT

Asiwaju Tinubu with Dr. Fayemi

The internet and social media are great resources for finding information, but they’re also the perfect vehicles for spreading misinformation.

Early Sunday afternoon, an article surfaced online from a fake website cloning that of National Mirror purporting that Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Nigeria’s minister of solid mineral development has taken the national leader of the governing All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the cleaner.

In the fake article, Fayemi was said to have described Tinubu as a leader and hardworking person, however maintained that “Tinubu was responsible for his own misfortunes in the party, saying no one can be seeing himself as the indispensable where thousand of intellectuals operate.”

The article continued; “Asiwaju might have been instrumental to the political breakthrough of some of us, he has the financial muscle, but we equally paid our dues without opportunity of negotiation. We have always been the “Yes Sir” types and we never complained. But we never expected him to think such can continue where development takes place. It is no news that whatever goes around comes around.”

But sadly, the article is a cruel hoax concocted by a nondescript website to deceive many and drive unnecessary traffic.

As soon as the fake story hit the blogosphere, many bought into the fake news and it begun to trend as well as many pressing “like”, “share” and “retweet” button on the Facebook and Twitter timeline without verifying the story.

Thoroughly embarrassed, the editors of the cloned national newspaper (The Mirror) were shocked that some crooks could write a malicious story and ascribed it to their paper. In fact, the print version of the newsaper didn’t come out today Sunday that the article was circulated.

However, before the minister could even denounce the article, those who know him have come out to defend him.

Wole Olujobi, a respected journalist said “Dr Kayode Fayemi is known to us here. That is not his language. He (Fayemi) doesn’t have the temperament for that kind of outburst.”

Asides a press release signed by the minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Olayinka Oyebode who described the article as “highly mischievous and malicious report and nothing but a tissue of lies”, the minister in a series of tweets also cleared air on the report:

“I have been alerted to a story circulating online ascribing certain remarks to me regarding the person of our leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

“The said report is not only mischievous but totally malicious and nothing but a tissue of lies.

“I never granted such interview & will never use such words quoted in the fictional report against anyone let alone our revered BAT.

“I subscribe to the highest moral and ethical standards of the Yoruba culture. I respect my elders and leaders at all times.

“As such, I would never speak evil or seek to demean Asiwaju Tinubu or any of our respected leaders under no circumstance whatsoever.

“My relationship with Asiwaju dates back to days of pro-democracy agitations thus precedes the mundane politics of the 4th republic.

“I thank those who drew my attention to the report and many more who were quick to discard the falsehood of a report. Thank you all.

Coincidentally, on same Sunday, CNN ran a story on the negative impact of fake news and the danger of just sharing the news without fact check. It was written by Brian Stelter who has concluded that fake news has become a plague on the web, especially on social media networks like Facebook and explains why everyone needs a new rule for the web before sharing as things get worse.

Similarly, Dr. Jimmy Rustling, multiple Pulitzer Prize and Peabody awards winner also penned an article which he titled “How To Educate Yourself Before You Just Share Articles On Facebook Like A F*ckin’ Doof”.

According to Rustling, fake news has become really, really funny on the web. Especially on social media networks like Facebook by people who share the fake news without taking the time to read more than the first paragraph, if that.

Quoting Stelter, “Triple check, look at what’s trending, check Twitter, if you still have a Myspace account – hit that up, Ask Jeeves, and call your mom before you decide to read anything online. If it’s porn, just go with what you’re into, but definitely don’t hit the ‘share’ or ‘like’ button. How weird is that by the way? Pornhub, why do you even have those social media buttons? That’s so gross and not funny for drunkies at 2AM who are like, “Oh man, do you know who would really enjoy this interracial gangbang video with creampie finish? My boss! Now lets huff some more glue!”

“The real problem comes down to the education system in this country that does not allow individuals to read past the first paragraph, or most of the time, they just read the title on a news story before sharing it with all of their hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook. Those are the ‘sharing doofs’ who keep fake sites, like Fox News, in business,” Horner said.

“For example, read this story about a Donald Trump protester getting paid $3,500 at one of his rallies. This story has been shared on Facebook more than two million times. Seriously, over 2,000,000 people have shared this story. But I highly doubt one of those two million people actually took the time to read the story, for if they did they would realize that half of the story is devoted to talking sh*t about Snopes.com and the other half talks about Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin and his adventures of traveling around the country educating Elementary School children about the dangers and consequences of masturbation.

“99 per cent of these fake news stories can be debunked by just reading more than than the first two sentences. I feel bad for major news outlets like CNN who post articles and videos that talk negatively about these stories that people share and it appears that they did not even take the time to read the article, otherwise I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have done an entire video about it in the first place.”