Padre Pio’s Guide To Spotting Fake Referendum Pages

IN a bid to help steer the ship of referendum truth through these current and very troubling political waters, WWN have reached out to everyone’s favourite Capuchin monk Padre Pio, to get some advice on how to spot a Facebook page, Youtube video ad or ‘neutral’ website that may be trying to steer you towards biased information about the upcoming vote on the 8th amendment while posing as an ‘unbiased’ source of ‘information’.

With highly politicised social media pages and adverts springing up like mushrooms, pushing biased information into the newsfeeds of thousands of voters with the help of a huge advertisement spend and no apparent origin or money trail, famous stigmatic Padre Pio has urged Facebook and internet users to be on the lookout for headlines and articles that just feel ‘odd’, as if there’s something just not right about them.

Speaking exclusively to WWN, the recently-beatified Saint laid out a ‘watchlist’ of things to be aware of when browsing your Facebook page or Youtube feed, adding that some articles may seem to be from legitimate sources, but under close scrutiny they may be from a US-based organisation that is just trying to exploit people’s uncertainty for their own political purposes.

“Fake news is a thing we hear of a lot these days, but it’s far from a new thing. There was fake news all the way back to the days of lads burning their own hands and claiming Jesus did it,” said Padre Pio, taking a pause from a heavy session of Fortnite on his Xbox.

“A lot of these things are written in such a way as to appear ‘unbiased’ or to get a knee-jerk reaction from people, to stir up outrage and drown out any dissenting voices. It’s very hard to get a clear message out to people, but it’s very easy to just create confusion and doubt and let that do the hard work for you. So be very wary of anything you read on social media. Check the sources. And if you have family or friends who are known to be easily led by their social media, check in with them to make sure they’re not falling for false propaganda. Also, invest in Bitcoin and kiss my arse”.

With dozens of blatantly fake pages and adverts springing up on Facebook every day, the social media giant has pledged to do maybe something about it, someday.