The City Park swans are alive and well. But so, apparently, is the social media rumor mill

In all the years I lived near City Park, I can't begin to estimate the number of times I watched our graceful swans glide serenely across the park lake, their long necks tilted upward and their feathers spreading like tutus on the water. Watching them made me feel a little serene, too.

So I wasn't sure whether to smile or cry last week when an apparent social media post claiming the swans at City Park had been killed fomented a reaction so strong the city of Hagerstown was compelled to post its own assurance that all the park swans were alive and well, thank you very much.

Seriously, folks, all anyone had to do was take a stroll by the park to see the post wasn't true.

As misinformation goes, this was fairly benign; although I imagine it was a little irritating for the city staff who had to deal with it. But it illustrates how quickly people will run with a rumor without checking it out.

Remember that whisper game we played when we were kids where everybody lines up and the first person whispers "roses are red" or some such thing, and by the time it gets to the end, the last person hears "Lois is dead?"

Social media have become the whisper game on speed. Only it's a lot more dangerous, and not just to swans.

From political discourse to health information to comments on your teen's social life, social media — or our use and abuse of it — can wield power never before unleashed for good or for ill.

I frequently see folks I know to be good people reposting or reacting to statements or memes that apparently resonate with them, but are not true. And certainly a good person would not want one of our swans to come to harm, so the prospect would be alarming enough to them to elicit objections.

The problem clearly is that even good people assume these things are true — or in some cases choose to believe they are — without making sure. And so the contagion spreads like COVID.

Particularly distressing is the fact that many of the same folks who rightly expect people like me to vet our information before we publish it — and to be objective about it — don't follow those principles when they post on social media.

So here's a question to ponder: Why are news organizations expected to be accurate in what they report?

Answer: The spread of false information is harmful. It can result in everything from bullying children to starting wars.

Here's a second question to consider — and maybe a third: Why would anyone assume that because information is spread on social media it would somehow be less harmful? Shouldn't anyone who posts there also vet their information before posting it, and for the same reason?

Three years ago, a study co-authored by scholars at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology found that "most people who share false news stories online do so unintentionally.

"The study also indicates why people share false information online," MIT reported. "Among people who shared a set of false news stories used in the study, around 50 percent did so because of inattention, related to the hasty way people use social media; another 33 percent were mistaken about the accuracy of the news they saw and shared it because they (incorrectly) thought it was true; and about 16 percent knowingly shared false news headlines."

The authors concluded that most people care about accurate information, but "inattention and the simple failure to stop and think about accuracy" were often the culprits.

That would certainly explain why people jumped to conclusions about the swans when their demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, was an exaggeration.

People wanted to share accurate information, the authors said, but "the current design of social media environments, which can prioritize engagement and user retention over accuracy, stacks the deck against them.”

It's commencement time in my family, and maybe in yours. Here's to the Class of 2024

They suggested social media be redesigned "to occasionally put content into people’s feeds that primes the concept of accuracy."

Obviously that hasn't happened yet. But there's a really, really, really simple way we can each contribute to keeping social media from performing our swan song.

If you don't know for dead certain that a statement or a meme is true, don't post or react to it. And if you know it's false, report it.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hagerstown swans OK despite what you might have seen on social media