The best present any parent of grown-up kids can ask for is to spend some time with them at Christmas.
This year, I was lucky enough to do just that with my boys.
And this time it was more important than ever, after the worst thing a parent could imagine happened to me just before I headed back to Ashfield for the holidays.
AlamyLee Anderson, Member of Parliament for Ashfield, Nottinghamshire[/caption]
AFPDeputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Lee Anderson[/caption]
Someone, and I still don’t know who they really are, phoned in to LBC pretending to be my son Charlie.
He claimed that I’d physically assaulted him.
As the old saying goes, a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on – it went viral.
I raised my boys single-handedly and they mean everything to me.
To think that there are people out there who believe I would do something like that makes me sick to my stomach.
I still haven’t had any apology from LBC. But as we all know, that’s the problem with social media.
Once something’s out there, it’s nigh on impossible to shut down and those who peddle fake information aren’t held to account.
It’s not just random blokes making ridiculous claims on a phone-in. There’s an even bigger headache out there for those of us in the public eye: artificial intelligence.
Think of it as Photoshop on steroids – creating images or videos so real, you’d swear they’re the genuine article.
Politicians are already being caught in the crossfire, their words twisted, their actions fabricated.
This technology could pose a real danger at the general election.
Deepfake videos of Sir Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan did the rounds earlier this year.
And who knows what nonsense has bounced around on WhatsApp.
We disagree on a lot, but as politicians it’s our job to attack each other on what we say and do, not make things up to discredit our opponents.
So this New Year’s Eve I’m asking everyone to make this their resolution: before you hit that share button or jump on a bandwagon, take a moment to question what you see.
It’s about time we all became a bit more social media savvy.
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