Wake Up, Look Up

[Music]

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question can you handle the

truth over the last decade the spread of

misinformation online has become a huge

cultural problem so much so that most of

us probably feel that whatever you read

on the internet particularly social

media you kind of have to give the side

eye you're never 100% sure that it's

real that it's accurate that it's true

uh and add into this that artificial

intelligence is rapidly making it so

that at the snap of a finger you can

create a video or a picture or text you

can even make famous people say things

that they never said and I think

confidence and what's said or written

online is at an all-time low as a

response to this tech companies recently

have uh pursued what we would call

Professional fact checking hiring people

to vet stories this is why sometimes

you'll see something shared online and

then underneath it you'll see a post

from the company saying hey this might

not be entirely accurate here's a link

to the actual facts so on and so forth

and professional factchecking has

produced some result uh 28% uh uh belief

in stories that are false online are is

down 28% uh Stories being shared that

are false is down

25% uh it's making a difference but it's

also becoming unpopular because tech

companies are being accused of uh

picking and choosing which post they're

going to fact check to kind of make sure

that the stream of online information

represents their own world view as a

result tech companies such as X formerly

known as Twitter and meta which owns

Facebook and Instagram are changing

their factchecking process in fact just

this week according to an article I read

in the New York Times meta is going from

professional factchecking to community

factchecking in other words a post can

just live online and they're counting on

people like you and I to comment using a

feature called Community notes that hey

this might not be true when enough

people have done that it'll then be

attached to the story so that the

community note will say hey a number of

people don't believe this story is to be

true the expectation is that far fewer

stories are going to be fact checked and

far less Credence will be given to those

that do the question is how should we

think about this as Christians how

should we think about the spread of

misinformation online and our own role

to play in it well actually think think

we should take it pretty seriously

that's for a number of reasons let me

just throw a few at you number one God

hates lying don't forget in Exodus 20

The Ten Commandments God is giving

Israel 10 key principles to live by 10

laws that he's going to hold them to and

one of them is don't bear false witness

don't lie don't spread lies don't tell

lies don't believe lies the reverse of

this is that God is saying to Israel

tell the truth this matters to God and

of course it does because his nature and

character is that he's a truth teller

don't forget in the Gospel of John

chapter 14 Jesus says I am the way the

truth and the life this is who God is he

tells the truth he values the truth

doesn't it follow then as followers of

Jesus as Disciples of God we would be

truth tellers we would value the truth

the the reality is that when we share

stories that we don't know to be true

and they turn out not to be true we are

guilty of bearing false witness I know

in Exodus 20 the original audience could

not have foreseen Facebook or Instagram

or Twitter they couldn't have uh

contemplated sharing stories liking

retweeting stories that aren't true that

wasn't what they were thinking of when

God said Don't Lie

but God gave that command for all time

and all places God isn't interested in

the mechanism or method of our lying he

just doesn't want us to do it and the

reality is that when we do lie when we

spread Lies We actually harm our world

and we're unloving to our neighbor we

cause other people to believe worse than

that when we retweet and share and post

things that turn out not to be true we

are leveraging our own credibility in

pursuit of sharing that lie in other

words someone believes it because

Grandma posted it they trust it because

their discipleship leader their small

group leader their Bible study teacher

is sharing it online you're telling

people you might not know if you can

trust this but you can trust me maybe

you've never thought about your use of

social media in this way but you are a

steward of the truth you're

participating in the strengthening of

our trust in each other or the weakening

of it and and the problem with this is

that in Ephesians 4 Paul tells us that

Christians are not to be like the world

tossed around from one story to the next

one lie to the next we're people who are

Anchored In Truth so I want you to look

at your use of social media your

engagement with the news your telling

and retweeting and sharing of particular

stories and ask yourself am I leading to

people being tossed around am I sharing

with Reckless abandon or am I making

sure that I'm only liking retweeting and

posting what I know to be

100% true don't bear false witness and

don't post it retweet it like it or

share it either hey thanks so much for

watching this episode of wake up lookup

while you're here take a minute to like

And subscribe really helps us get the

word out don't hesitate to leave a

review wherever you might find this

podcast on an audio level and help

spread the word and hey while you're

here check out all the other content we

have at Christ Community Chapel on

YouTube some of those videos are popping

up on the screen now click on one

[Music]