fiona_carr26•1mo agoProlific Poster

Heard a guy at the coffee shop in Austin swear the city was banning plastic straws again

He was telling his friend the city council just passed a new law. I looked it up and found the original ban was from 2020, and it's still the same rule. Nothing new happened, but someone must have shared an old article without the date. How do you guys quickly check if a story is just old news being passed off as new?

4 comments

4 Comments

logan_gonzalez1mo ago

My buddy fell for that last week with a parking ticket rumor.

aaronm551mo ago

Yeah checking the comments first like @matthew878 said is smart. I used to just read the headline and get all worked up. Now I make myself look for a date on the article before I even react, saves me from looking silly when it's just old news. That plastic straw thing is a perfect example, stuff just gets recycled online.

matthew8781mo ago

Honestly I just check the comments first, people usually call out old dates there before I even click.

mark_green11d ago

Austin's 2020 straw rule is still the only one on the books. I saw that same mix-up last month on a neighborhood page. It's wild how these old stories keep popping up, like that parking ticket thing @logan_gonzalez mentioned. I always open the article and scan for a date near the headline before I believe anything now.