Don’t trust everything online

The Internet is a source for tremendous good and potentially dreadful evil . It is a ravenous beast that eats alive anyone who can’t answer its hoary riddle .

This is the internet today, the world’s largest ungoverned space where the online scams, the bullying campaigns, the hate-group websites, the pornographic hubs and even the terrorist chat rooms dominate.

Worse, publishing hoaxes and frauds is a big-time business in the market today. False news, unverified data and manipulated survey results published all across social networks then become viral. Quiet familiar, however, we are only just beginning to witness its global impact.

Last January 14, the Official English Facebook Page of news.va (facebook.com/news.va), a news aggregator portal which reports the news and information from all the Vatican media in one website, posted its official statement on false views and communications attributed to Pope Francis. They said that they have been notified by many readers that there are stories currently circulating all over the internet spreading statements by Pope Francis with regard to a number of issues.

False issues and statements concerning the Bible’s content, for example, the relations between religions, the renewal of the Church’s doctrine, and even the calling of an alleged “Third Vatican Council.” News.va said that these statements were spread by unknown sources. The news agency also warns netizens to be careful and not to trust too soon news about the Pope that are not from the Vatican.

Moreover, there are also many unidentified trolls on social networks that try to put false information in circulation, taking advantage of the fact that it is easy to “throw the stone and hide the hand.”

There are also Facebook profiles of Pope Francis/Jorge Maria Bergoglio, basically mere “fan pages,” which are not official pages at all. News.va said that they have not been authorized to officially represent the Pope.

“We encourage all readers to check the official Vatican media sources for further confirmation of Pope Francis’ statements, or even to check what exactly he said with reference to specific issues,” as written on its official statement. “If the statements attributed to the Pope by any media agency do not appear in the official media sources of the Vatican, it means that the information they report is not true,” they further clarified on their post.

They also give a list of the official Vatican media which readers should use as valid reference to making sure that any reported statement referred to the Pope is true and verified:

•      L’Osservatore Romano (newspaper): www.osservatoreromano.va

•      Vatican Radio: www.radiovaticana.va

•      VIS (Vatican Information Service): www.vis.va

•      Holy See Press Office: www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/altre-istituzioni/sala-stampa-santa-sede.html

•      Centro Televisivo Vaticano (Vatican Television Center): www.ctv.vaor www.vatican.va/news_services/television/

•      Vatican.va (the official website of the Holy See, where you can find the full text of all speeches, homilies and Apostolic documents by the Pope): www.vatican.va

•      PopeApp (the official app for smartphones dedicated to the Pope – Copyright News.va)

•      @Pontifex (the official Twitter profile of the Pope): www.twitter.com/pontifex

These websites have links to their corresponding social networking sites and other official online accounts which canbe added and followed. We cannot eliminate the people who continuously destroy our Church and her leaders even in virtual world today. But through technological inclusion and responsible use of the internet, we can help transfer power into the hands of faithful believers of Christ, guided by one holy, Catholic and apostolic church – and trust that they will take it from there.