A lie gets around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
Actually the original saying was, “A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.” and was said by Cordell Hull although it is commonly attributed to Churchill.
This came to my mind today as I was partway through fact checking a transcription of the Internet Party President Suzie Dawson. She must be aware of the saying, some of the lies in that transcript have been travelling around the world for years now as apparently truth couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed at all.
Part of the problem is video. It takes a long time to go through a transcript and check/question what is in it. It takes even longer to go through a video and I think most of the world can’t be bothered.
That leads to a second problem, if people can’t be bothered fact checking then it doesn’t get done and the people lying through their teeth get to lie until the records are full of it. Dawson is a perfect example of this. No-one should have made it through the first paragraph of her speech without serious concerns being raised.
That leads to a third problem. Once the records are full of it, it is much harder to combat the lie. We get used to it and when the preponderance of evidence says one thing we are hesitant to believe something else. The quote at the start is commonly attributed to Churchill, the evil queen says,”Mirror mirror on the wall“.
(Actually, there is quite a good site on it called Debunking Mandela Effects)
To give you an idea of how long it takes to fact check a video I spent four hours once fact checking a five minute video on vaccination.
Which leads to a fourth problem. If nobody cares then it has all been a waste of time. If people happily continue in exactly the same vein as they were before or, even better, create a new justification in order to continue then fact checking the liars is worthless. We need to question things more, especially when it concerns our leaders*.
