Charlotte Figler, 27
The #history tag has shown up more often on people’s “for you” pages. This is interesting, seeing as how most people spend their time on social media to avoid topics involved with school. These videos are usually quick: one to two minute shorts on topics ranging from opinions on gender roles today, fast facts about museums around the world, or interesting historical people and events. These entertaining videos can be great to watch to see fun facts about our history, such as a tour of Anne Frank's annex or interesting ways that people used to be punished in colonial times. One challenge of this new genre of videos is knowing what is real and what is misinformed (Walrus).
What is misinformation? Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that can be unintentional and less severe. This is more common on social media platforms because of people watching certain videos that are misinformed and continuing to spread that information. It’s not the person's fault; it's their source of information that's incorrect. With the new trend of ‘history’, several videos that should be explained in an hour, only use a mere minute to cover complex topics. While this is appealing to the audience, it is usually not a topic that can be covered in under 60 seconds without missing some of the valuable context and information necessary to understanding the historical event, person, or challenge (Dhaliwal).
Different accounts have appeared over time advertising “fast facts about history” but are rarely sourced. For example, one TikToker under the handle @momlennial created multiple videos under the theories that Ancient Rome did not exist. She made different claims, one example being her claiming there to be not a single primary source coming out of the Roman time period, therefore there were never Roman people. Something she clearly made up without a single fact to back it up. Tiktokers such as @momlennial can often be described as “conspiracy theorists”, or people who conspire against certain events and facts. The difference between actual historical researchers and TikTokers such as this woman is that they usually have facts to back up their claims. Professor Maxwell T. Paule, a historical studies teacher from Earlham College in Indiana, responded to her videos with historical facts that proved her claims false and reported against her theories (Press-Reynolds).
People have been lying about historical facts for years. Misinformation has been around since the beginning of time. With social media, it has become increasingly more difficult to navigate. In the 21st century, the reliability of information has been on a downward spiral, especially since the creation of TikTok and other social media platforms. Social media is now used as a source of facts, instead of what it is: entertainment. This has completely derailed the need for research and prioritizing where we get our information. Instead, if people's favorite influencer posts a certain idea or opinion, most will accept it as fact, as opposed to verifying the information. In this day and age, history has been lost with the spread of misinformation and facts that no one now chooses to research (Froelich).