The photo above appeared on the Facebook history page for my hometown and hundreds of people are commenting on it. The building in question was the headquarters of a long-gone local dairy operation that was a beloved part of the community. In the comments, people are mourning the loss of the building and, long before that, the dairy business, and they’re citing their favorite products.

Only one problem: As some of the comments point out, this photo is more than 10 years old. The building was torn down more than 10 years ago. Because it’s not a great picture, it’s hard to tell that this demolition, more than a decade ago, left a prominent part of the complex standing. And it’s still there this morning.

The caption reads only, “Demo of Riggins Dairy.” That’s it. It doesn’t note that the demo took place 11 years ago. That’s left up to a commenter.

There are soooo many problems with Facebook. (And yes, I’m still on there, because it’s a way to communicate with friends and family and promote my work and that of others.) The worst is that the parent company, Meta, actively supports the destruction of our democratic society.

But another huge problem is misinformation and, charitably, half-assed information. I suppose the original poster didn’t intend to mislead people – including many, many people who follow the page who haven’t been in the city in 10, 20, 30 or 50 years – into thinking the demo was actively going on today. It’s hard to say.

But even by omitting information and context, even if innocently intended, it’s given the impression that “they’re tearing down the old dairy building.” I thought that myself because I haven’t lived there in going on four years. Then I saw the comments giving some trimeframe context.

I can’t tell you to boycott Facebook because I’ve got three pages – my personal page, which has very limited access by readers, and my author page and Wicked Muncie page, created in 2016 to promote our true crime books.

But for pete’s sake, be aware that you’re not getting the whole story when you see something on Facebook. Sometimes all that means is that you’re misinformed about a building. Sometimes it means you’re misinformed about assaults on our democracy.