You probably have heard the story about the 28-year-old father of two from Salisbury, North Carolina, who read that a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., was harboring young children as sex slaves as part of a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and her chief campaign aide, John Podesta.

Maybe you reacted as I did: How could anyone with half a brain believe such nonsense? Looking into this further, we would have found that the articles making these claims were showing up relentlessly on the Internet on sites including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as part of thousands of fake stories during and after the recent contentious presidential campaign.Edgar Welch found these stories believable and drove six hours to the Comet Ping Pong pizza shop to check it out. Shortly after his arrival, he fired an assault-type AR-15 rifle. Thank goodness, no one was hurt.Welch told police he came armed to help rescue children, but he gave up peacefully after satisfying himself that what he had read was not accurate.He didn't know it, but what he had been reading online were fake news stories that began appearing in October shortly before the presidential election. The restaurant was identified in these bogus stories as the headquarters for a child-trafficking ring, complete with secret tunnels in the basement and other clandestine trappings.In the Wild West of online posts, just about anything goes, and consumers would do well to check their believability meters when visiting sites that specialize in conspiracy theories or flat-out lies.The issue has been made more complicated by how those in charge of legitimate websites such as Facebook, Twitter and others deal with these fake reports without trampling on free speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution's First Amendment."Identifying the 'truth' is complicated," wrote Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. "While some hoaxes can be completely debunked, a greater amount of content, including from mainstream sources, often gets the basic idea right but some details wrong." Zuckerberg said he believes sites such as his must be extremely cautious about becoming arbiters of truth.Media critics were quick to pounce on Zuckerberg for not being forceful enough in promising to be more vigilant to head off these fake stories. He falls back on an old excuse when the fake news issue comes up, that Facebook is just a technology firm and a platform, not up to the task of policing its users, these critics charged.Actually, it's fairly simple to understand why people tend to believe fake news stories. They will read, like and share stories that appeal to their beliefs and emotions. "The reason why it's so hard to stop fake news is that the facts don't change people's minds," Leslie Harris, a former president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that promotes free speech and open internet policies, told The New York Times.Marco Chacon made up a story about Clinton calling Bernie Sanders' supporters "a bucket of losers." It came from a fake story he had posted on his website saying that Clinton made the remark at a secret speech she had given inside a Goldman Sachs boardroom. Once posted, the story quickly went viral and was even picked up by Fox News and given wide coverage. Fox later issued an apology after finding that the whole thing was a hoax.Closer to home, there have been recent fake news stories about Lady Gaga planning to buy a home near Harrisburg and Harrison Ford looking around for one near Reading. There have been similar fake stories about celebrities seeking to locate in the Poconos or in nearby northwestern New Jersey.Fake news reporting has entangled even elite news organizations. Can we ever forget Jayson Blair, an up-and-coming New York Times reporter, who ultimately admitted to faking news sources, making up quotes from nonexistent newsmakers and lying about being on the scene of news stories across the country when he was actually in New York City? Or how about Janet Cooke of The Washington Post, whose reporting on Jimmy's World won a Pulitzer Prize? It was later found that there was no "Jimmy," a supposed preteen drug addict. She became the one and only person in the history of the Pulitzers to return the prize.A woman from Lehighton sent me a copy of a web posting that showed an alleged Fisher-Price bar-themed playset for youngsters. The outraged resident urged me to write an editorial condemning the company for having the audacity to create such an outlandish and inappropriate toy. The online post shows three toddlers standing at a pretend bar, with one posing as a bartender and two of the children holding plastic beer bottles.When I investigated, I found that Fisher-Price does not have such a product, nor would it ever, according to a company representative. It was concocted by Adam the Creator, who specializes in parodying real companies and their products.By Bruce Frassinelli |

tneditor@tnonline.com