Views expressed on this page may not reflect those of the Star Herald

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the Rock County Star Herald.
This should be obvious. It’s the Opinion Page, after all. We invite our readers to submit letters expressing their views, and we encourage opposing viewpoints to play out on this page. It’s a sign of a healthy and engaged readership.
Since the advent of Facebook and other social media, opposing viewpoints are way more likely to play out online rather than on this page.
Facebook has also made possible the wild and reckless online sharing of “disinformation” (lies) which came to a head in the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook scrollers discovered abrasive memes or unsourced “breaking news” that matched their own opinions and clicked and shared at will. The more they clicked, the more the Facebook algorithms fed their fancies.
This went on unchecked among otherwise respectable and educated people, unaware that they were pawns in foreign meddlers’ attempt to “divide and conquer” an unsuspecting American public.
Since then, tech companies have weeded out many suspicious actors, and Facebook users are becoming more savvy about posts they trust and share.
But the damage is done.
Foreign players got the American leadership they wanted, and the American public is more divided and polarized than ever.
Meanwhile it’s become acceptable to discredit the credible and lend credibility to the uncredible. (A dictator’s first item of business is to label the press as “enemies of the people” in order to push propaganda.)
The disinformation is spilling out into live, person-to-person conversations, and now we’re seeing it on our Opinion Page.
… which we do reserve the right to steer toward a degree of accuracy.
On the bottom of the page, the “Letters Policy” states that letters containing offensive language, libelous or slanderous material or misleading or false information will be rewritten before being published.
On this front, our Star Herald editorial board has been asleep at the wheel. We’ve allowed letters to appear that we should have moderated or added disclaimers to. 
One such letter last week was so full of inaccurate statements we wouldn’t have known where to start editing. 
We hoped that the headline, “Things that you won’t hear on the news that are 100 percent true,” would suggest caution, but in hindsight, we should have done better. 
Beware, dear readers, of what you click and share. And please check your sources if you’re sharing “truths” on our opinion page.