Just a little earlier today, pandemonium broke out in the (local) interwebs, particularly Facebook, when The Rakyat Post “apparently” shared a national Budget 2015 revision post on Facebook. Sure, the budget revision was big news because it’s indicative of things to come this year for Malaysians.
It was big news because how often would a PM hold a special session to announce the key measures that will be implemented/taken in view of the changes in the global economic landscape? Most certainly, it was big news because it would change how we do things, how we spend, and what we should or should not have planned for 2015 (yay for domestic holidays though!).
In case you missed it, the measures include:
- Offering free entry visas to visitors, including those from China.
- Local contractors to be given task of repairing to carry out work on flood-hit areas. (Contractors in the G1, G2 and G3 categories.)
- More promotion of Malaysian-made goods.
- Extending the period of Mega-sales nationwide.
- Encourage domestic tourism through competitive pricing of domestic flights.
Among the expenditures to be cut is the National Service Training Programme (PLKN), which will save the government RM400 million. Not only will the programme for this year be deferred as part of the austerity measures to address the country’s fall in income, it will also be reviewed and enhanced.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s look at how this affects how people who are sharing that piece of news on Facebook.
Like many of us in the media pool, we scrambled to share the revisions, as announced by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. The Rakyat Post did the same, as did other media outlets. Did you miss The Rakyat Post’s, uhm, post?
Here:
We know what you’re thinking. What? Budget f***** what? The cheek they had to not only cuss in their title but to also make our PM look ridiculous/bad? What is the meaning of this? Are they trying to be clever? Damn right it was unnecessary for The Rakyat Post to use language like that! Nevermind the national Budget 2015 revision, let’s not read a single word from their portal anymore. Huff puff.
Object. Boycott. Anti. Forever.
That purported “offensive title” post has been making its rounds, sparking debates on Facebook – and we can understand why. But wait, let’s look at their original post, which was shared on their Facebook page:
Are you confused? Let us explain.
Here’s the thing:
When you manually share a post on Facebook, and by “manually” we mean when you painstakingly paste a link in that little status box (form) of yours, if you noticed or tried to click, you’d see that Facebook allows you to either edit or change altogether, the title of your link. Of course, if you shared the post from the original Facebook page, case in point, The Rakyat Post’s Facebook page, you wouldn’t be given the luxury to alter the title.
To prove a point, let’s do a quick demo!
Before posting, while editing:
Like we said, Facebook allows you to change or edit the title.
And after posting, title edited:
See it?
The only problem is, and allow us to break it down for you, let’s call them Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. So, let’s say Brad Pitt manually shares the link and not from The Rakyat Post’s Facebook page, but before sharing it, he edits the title because don’t know why maybe he’s trying to be funny, and he posts it, then Angelina Jolie sees the post with the edited title on her Facebook newsfeed, finds it interesting, and shares it with her Facebook universe from there, guess what? The edited title locks.
Like so:
Do you see what we mean now? No, we don’t mean that this was all Brad Pitt’s fault to begin with. This means that you really shouldn’t believe everything that you see or read on social media. Especially Facebook. Protip? It does help to click on the said post and check if the title of the post/article is really as indicated. In this case, The Rakyat Post’s original title was a very harmless one which read, “National Service 2015 suspended, says Najib”.
Tsks. Bad Brad Pitt, bad!
Note: We’re in no way affiliated with The Rakyat Post but we certainly do not condone the sharing of posts with changed/edited titles. Please don’t get anyone in trouble. Also, we don’t actually think that Brad Pitt is a bad person.
