Should frightening forwarded messages be immediately believed and shared?

First check the facts, then decide whether to believe or forward the message. A message that makes people anxious is not necessarily true. Repeatedly passing it on before verification only causes more people to become afraid.

During the pandemic, many kinds of messages circulated on LINE. I reminded everyone to return to the source and understand the government’s prevention information at that time, rather than listen only to what others passed along. Knowing the actual situation and how to cooperate with the necessary measures helps us feel more grounded.

We should still care about matters that need attention. But clarifying the facts and deciding how to act on accurate information is different from being frightened and unsettled by a flood of messages every day. Receiving many messages or forwarding them quickly does not necessarily help.

My father also used to send me messages that worried him. I would ask him to pause, stop forwarding them and check together whether they were true. Once he understood, he was also willing to withdraw them. When helping family verify information, we can begin by stopping the spread and clarifying the facts. There is no need to begin by blaming the person.

We also need to consider the timing. We discussed a forwarded message about a temple ceremony that said ‘tomorrow’ but continued circulating several days later. The temple subsequently issued a clarification. A message received today was not necessarily written today. First check the source and date, so that an outdated event, or even an event that never existed, is not mistaken for something actually happening tomorrow.