I posted a chunk of my original thoughts here as a comment. I wanted to expand on it without rehashing it too much (but I probably will a bit, sorry), especially after seeing u/catsfive comments here on the false post regarding Oprah leaving the country.

I recommend you read the links above, then proceed.

Recent examples of a worrying trend

So first off, let's review a few similar posts to the Oprah one:

• oregeon firefighters being held up by incompetent california gov - disproven by the oregon fire department itself, which said they are in the fight right now.
• There was a false claim I saw shared a few days ago (gone now, thank you mods!) that the Diddy LA mansion burned down before the investigators could visit it. It was raided last year ffs, it kicked off the scandal we know of today. It was so wrong the first community note was a French men's response.
• some source shared (again can no longer find the posts so I think our good and gracious mods have been hard at work tossing bad bread away) a bad source (I think it was Stew Peters) who again was proven wrong in x community notes.

There are some other examples I saw since the new year too, so I know the mods have their work still cut out for them. Point is there are still people who reposted these claims in various forms, and a lot of them have weak data support (and/or are outright false)

Okay some things on GAW are wrong factually, but so what? that's true for a lot of news aggregators, right?

First off, GAW isn't just another news aggregator, though it does serve that type of function for a lot of us. If you think it is, you didn't read the sidebar on your pc for this place. GAW is a haven for high quality data and support for the Great Awakening.

People will need us to help them navigate the hellscape about to be shown to them. We need good quality data to do that. Also, News aggregators historically aggregate MSM mostly, and that is dead media now due to bad data and outright lies to us all. We are the news so let's not act like the reporters who fed narratives.

Secondly, this place has been fighting shills, DDoS attacks, glowies, paytriots, and all sorts of bad actors for years now. Our mods are simply superb at keeping the crap away from their fellow frens. I remember the days when glowy FET theory spreaders used to try to forum slide good data in comments, and the next day they were all squished like roaches under banhammers. The mods still do the same today, and I'm sure will continue to do so. I propose we help make their jobs easier by not feeding the problem posts save calling them out.

Thirdly, as I said in my comment I linked, in the title, and just a moment ago we are the news now. That is the function for many of the digital soldiers that aren't among the autists of the chans helping the white hats precision strike isis, identifying body doubles, or image analysing antifa members as criminals and catching them in the act. We each have our purpose here, be it getting/giving support, sharing good/bad news, or morale boosting the crowd. GAW rocks, so let's make sure we keep it rocking!

u/ashlanddog does great aggregation of all sorts of info in huge bursts. I'm more niche as I focus on human trafficking and the like (I'll keep trying to do one a week BTW). Others here are hot on medicine and share how ivermectin is a cure for cancer and possibly the common cold. Find your subset and grind it!

We have a responsibility to provide as good a dataset as we can before SHTF, which tbh won't be long now. We are gonna get a lot of newbies in the coming months, so we need to guide them accordingly, frens.

Okay... so how can I avoid feeding the bad actors / sharing false data?

Pay attention to the following a few simple rules I try to live by (emphasis on try). I try to follow these in the order I am giving them as well:

1. Trust but verify: Conformation bias is a helliva drug, frens. We all want to believe shit is going down, or x organisation is malicious/incompetent, or people are fleeing America that hurt it for decades, but we cannot jump the gun. it is worth remembering that before upvoting or presuming something as true just because you want it to be, verify it is. If you can't be bothered to do that, don't bother to upvote it at all.
2. Pay attention to types of data being shared: an image alone is lower data value than a tweet. A tweet with no sauces is lower data value than a sourced tweet. A sourced tweet is lower data value than a tweet thread. A tweet thread is lower quality than a tweet thread with lots of high quality sourcing in it. Same for videos, no data sourcing in the vid, low quality food for news. Multiple points of backing = high quality data. Follow data sourcing rules, and things will go better for you.
3. Drop any bad data sources as shills/paytriots: X is the primary source for many new events, and paytriots / shills have seen the shift and are starting to capitalise on it. Unfortunately it means that we will have an influx of crap hitting x, and by extension GAW. Remember the axiom "fool me once shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you." I'll give sources two shots total, and if two consecutive falsehood come out without any corrections, that source is deadweight for me. Stop following them if it happens to you, and perhaps let us on GAW know the source is compromised (mods - recommend a flair for that, like "Shill alert!" or something).
4. Remember rule one: It bears repeating. A key aspect of things I saw with the click baity posts lately are they were things we wanted to presume. We want to presume cali is so incompetent they will let everything burn out of spite like Nero, so much so that they will stop help from other states providing it. We want to believe Oprah is running away. But wanting something hard enough doesn't make it come true. So remember rule one.

Final thoughts

As I said in that linked comment, our job isn't over. It's only just beginning. If we are the news now, then we have to provide as high quality info as we can.

Personal experiences of what is happening? Do it. Aggreagting key topics on the issues we are facing? Do it. Local wins? Do it. Advice that worked for us to get through the nightmares we have after knowing all the dark we have hidden in the system? Do it. Little steps taken complete the journey over time. Help everyone know your steps and we can carry another and each other on this journey together.

Above all else remember that we are in God's hands, and are his servants. So serve him well, and do not presume you are but an observer alone. Get involved. Be the change you want in the world. We are going to see change like we have never seen in our lifetimes. It will likely be as revolutionary as the printing press, steam engine, atomic energy, Internet, or possibly all of them combined. We have to help people through these changes before we lose them as part of the 4-6%.

We are in it together, frens. Let's goooooo!