I woke up late this morning and received a call from a very close friend.
He informed me that a person that I knew quite well in a past life had posted a picture on Facebook and they had suffered what seemed to be a serious injury.
The picture he spoke of was of someone in a hospital bed, bandaged up with broken ribs, a broken nose and a broken leg.
So, social media.
The person in this photo I have not spoken to in 1over 10 years. Not that there was the rift but they had moved far away and subsequently I moved even farther away.
My friend and I on the phone started to chat about this person and I immediately started to get feelings of how much I missed them and I needed to reach out.
I found their Facebook page and there was nothing about an accident nor pictures.
My friend on the phone did the same thing and announced maybe it wasn’t the right person … so hang on.
He did a quick search of his history and said, “Oh no it wasn’t so and so it was someone else.”
That is the power of the Internet but you have to see it through you are your own gatekeeper.
When my friend phoned he found a good friend of mine that was hurt, but that was misinformation as it turns out.
It caused me care and concern ’cause I then felt bad that I haven’t spoken to them in a while, felt guilty and also worried about their wellbeing.
But if you see it through as your own gatekeeper asking the tough questions … “Is that true? Did that happen? We need to confirm it.”
And confirm it we did!
This is a small, oh call it a case study, showing the power of the Internet two clicks and all is back and right with the world. I called the person in question immediately and had a terrific call!
But as your own gatekeeper you cannot let things go open-ended you have to close them off with the truth!
So PLEASE stop tweeting the nonsense you hear!