Dont believe the "likes"

Good evening folks, question. So is everything on the internet real? This is a question we have all wondered, especially since Google can help us answer seemingly every question in the world. Also, the likes of Wikipedia and Ask.com help with these questions too. But how can we truly know what we read isn't made up or altered? Keep in mind that Wikipedia even lets users edit information. So how do we know. I believe that we live in a day in age where truthfully no one cares how we know or where the source is. We have become so dependent on other avenues to learn information other than doing our own research, that we have become conditioned not to care. We don't care because it is easier to type a question into our search engine and within seconds we have 10,000 responses. Again, if its that easy, why care?
I can remember a time when I heard about a certain movie star had died via Facebook. My timeline was flooded with status updates and R.I.P. pictures and everything in between for the fallen legend. I believed this to be true for about a day or two as many other friends confirmed that the death was true. The thing that connected us all was Facebook. Facebook told us all of this tragedy and sparked a fire within the world to spread this story. You could say I believed it because everyone else did and friends were talking about it at school. Obviously it didn't initially dawn on me that I never read or saw this story on the news, newspaper, radio, or even other social media sites. At that point (about two days into believing this story) I took it upon myself to search this death on Yahoo. The very first search result stated that the story was a hoaxed. I felt duped and played like a fiddle. Gullible me I thought, but then again, gullible us. Us as in the thousands who thought this incident was true. Somehow this story was created and grew to something that took over mini feeds everywhere. It is clear that I got this information from Facebook and believed it as true from friends. Then with simple research I found the story to lack credibility within minutes of searching. I had believed a story for two business days and never thought to research it. This is the issue many of us have and anther way social media can be abused.
Social media sites can be helpful, case in point is how I found the story to be untrue, Yahoo.com. Unfortunately, the internet is a tool for the world and people aren't honest. We should always take what we read on any social media site or internet with a grain of salt. They are useful in spreading a message, but not always truthful in what is spread. The way we need to revert back to are the times when no one trusted information but there own. I practice this method to this day and stand by it because it is proven. I like to take the second guess out and thus I go the extra mile. The fact that answers and information can be so easily obtained is always going to be more attractive though we have to realize that untruths can be easily added to these sites. Once we get this thought process in our heads, we will be better for it and remember to "not believe the likes".