You really can’t believe everything you hear, especially on the internet. Anyone can pretend to be someone they’re not and the meme your friend just shared isn’t always true. We all know someone who believes in crazy stuff whether they’ve been proven to be true or not. The amount of misinformation on the internet has been in the spotlight by current events like the 2016 presidential election and the coronavirus.
The abundance of misinformation has gotten so out of control that some popular entertainment sites like Facebook and YouTube have taken a stand against fake news and implemented company strategies to combat it.
From fake news, cat fishing and conspiracy theories; we’ve identified the top 5 myths about high speed internet from 2020. Whether you have EarthLink, GotW3, AT&T, Verizon, or and other internet service provider – Let’s debunk those myths them right now!
Myth 1: Everything On The Internet Is True
Fact: Seasoned internet users know that it’s safe to assume that most of what is on the internet isn’t true. Fake news, misleading headlines, photoshopped memes, fake profiles and more are flooding social media.
It doesn’t stop there either; the internet is rife with inaccuracies everywhere we click. No matter what you’re looking for or find online, we all should take the time to check it’s validity with reputable sources before believing it’s true.
Myth 2: Search Engines Provide Completely Objective Results
Fact: Actually search engines, especially Google provide anything but objective results. Your search results from Google are actually customized to your location, search history, links you’ve clicked in the past and more factors they keep secret from us.
Simply logging out of your Google account or using “incognito mode” will not magically give you generic search results. There’s nothing necessarily bad or nefarious with customized results. In fact, Google wants to provide you with results catered to you so you find what you’re looking for.
Myth 3: Hackers Are The Biggest Threat To Online Safety
Fact: The biggest threat to online safety is actually you. Every time you fill out a web form, post on social media, don’t update your devices, router, or antivirus, you are putting yourself at risk. Those harmless Facebook quizzes aren’t as harmless as you think either. You could be giving out very personal information without even realizing it that can be found and used by cybercriminals.
They use the information you share to bypass passwords and security questions, that’ll ultimately let them into your accounts. While yes hackers are in fact a danger to everyone who uses the internet, they are only as dangerous as we are careless about our personal information.
Myth 4: Your Internet Provider Is Tracking Your Every Move
Fact: Yes in an indirect way, but it’s not how or what you think. Your internet provider can see what websites you look at, what time you look at them, what you buy online and more. However, there isn’t someone sitting behind a desk at your internet provider’s business office watching every click you make.
All of that information is likely being stored somewhere at your internet provider being forgotten about. Some internet providers do sell that information to better marketing companies, some do not.
There’s also ways you can make your browsing history more private like using a VPN. The best way to find out what happens to your information is to look up your internet provider’s personal information policies and to call and ask them yourself.
Myth 5: 5G Is Making People Sick
Fact: This is just a conspiracy theory that’s been proven to be not true. Studies have been done that show there is no evidence that 5G networks cause any negative health effects. 5G networks aren’t giving people cancer and the coronavirus isn’t from 5G. It was simply odd timing that 5G phones started being released at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.