I don’t know many Christians who can name and number the Ten Commandments. However, when we hear one, most of us know where it comes from. The Ninth Commandment is Do Not Bear False Witness, and research supports that people break this all the time, especially on social media.
For the record, I don’t believe in a God that punishes people for breaking rules – I think the punishment is baked into the commandments through a sowing and reaping, cause and effect kind-of-way. Following the commandments in the best way we can simply makes for a better world. I don’t know about you but I prefer neighbours that do not steal, are not jealous, do not murder and if asked to give an account of an event in my home, would bear true witnesses including, “I wasn’t there and didn’t hear anything”.
All that said, I’ve been thinking about this Ninth Commandment, particularly in the last week as my Christian brothers and sisters have been writing and re-sharing what I regard as an obscene amount of media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. And of course, the masters of the algorithm have been making the most of it. Zealots at the ends of every political, social and religious spectrums have also been leveraging the tragic event for influence, power and gain.
As a sober reminder, social media platforms, (and I suspect a large majority of content creators,) have absolutely no regard for the Ninth Commandment. To ‘not bear false witness’ is not a long-winded Old Testament way of saying, do not lie. It is a deeper call for us to not spread rumours. To not speak about things as if we were first-hand witnesses to them. To not allow our bias and our opinions and preferences to be shaped as true witnesses to events. To not bend fact for personal gain and power.
If you are reading this on a social media platform, you must know that social media companies have ONE GOAL and that is to make money. They do that by holding your attention > they do that by stirring your emotion > they do that by manipulating algorithms which they know how to keep you engaged and scrolling so that they can serve ads and pay their shareholders. They are NOT interested in being true witnesses. They are not interested in any kind of truth. They are not interested in moderating content (unless it serves their bottom line). They want your attention. They want you addicted. It’s that simple.
I think it is safe to say that a vast majority of news articles you read on social media are NOT from educated, employed, and vetted journalists. They are not PhD-holding researchers whose methods and data must undergo peer review. Yet, the number of Australians, Americans and other folk who get their news from feeds owned by these advertising companies is increasing and alarming.
Don’t get me wrong, I think these platforms can be a place of beauty, fun and maybe even truth. But as they stand today, they are the antithesis of the Ninth Commandment. And those that create content that is well-crafted, cut, edited, manipulated, perhaps AI-generated, and curated for image management also walk the line of being false witnesses.
So here is what I recommend you might do if you were to take this commandment seriously:
Think deeply, research and study the things that you believe, create and re-share to be factually true – considering both sides of the argument, stating what is verifiable fact, and what is your opinion. (Yes, that requires time and effort.)
Ask yourself some simple but important questions like:
Are my sources trustworthy?
Is doing this harmful to others?
Does this really matter?
Do I have the whole picture?
Am I bearing true witness?
I know I am repeating myself when I say this but the algorithms and companies that code them DO NOT care about the above questions. No one is vetting your posts for truth or fact, but thousands of people might be taking what you say as true – even if it’s a false witness account. Bearing false witness is not how we heal a fractured world. It is not how we bring order to chaos. It is not ‘The Good News.’
I hope this helps and perhaps encourages some to think twice before their next like, re-share or post on social media.
~ Dave
(By the way, feel free to like or share this of FB here if you feel it to be good and true 
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Pic: Ten Commandments by English School