Be skeptical of what you see on the Internet

Recently on my Facebook page a couple of people posted a very disturbing photo showing a heavily tattooed white male in what appears to be in his 20's apparently forcing a cute little puppy to drink a bottle of vodka. I was even asked by one of the people whom posted the image on their page to post the photo on this blog in hopes of actually finding the person and getting the person arrested, because allegedly that person had not been arrested yet.

I decided not to post the photo for two main reasons:

First, I considered the photo to be just to disturbing and graphic and might not just turn people away, but could result in people sending complaints to Blogger.com over the contents of the post, which could result in this blog having restrictions placed against it, or have the post pulled and removed.

And second, I don't know story behind that photo.

For one thing the person might have been making a very distasteful joke and only made it look like he was pouring vodka down the puppy's throat when in reality the bottle was already empty or sealed (it didn't look like there was any liquid in the bottle, or at least that any liquid was leaving the bottle), or, he could have been taking the bottle away from the puppy after it got a hold of it (and if you've ever puppy, you know they will get a hold of anything they can).

As it turns out, that's exactly what happened [read here]. The person in the photo wasn't trying to hurt the puppy, he was trying to prevent the puppy from accidentally hurting itself.

It literally took me two minutes to find out the truth behind that photo. All I did was take the photo, and dragged and dropped it into Google Image search, and as fast as my internet connection could take me, I found multiple pages that clearly show that the person was not abusing the puppy, which is why the guy was never arrested, because he never committed a crime.

This is a lesson for everyone when they see something like that photo on the internet and they're asked to repost it: do your research first on the subject at hand before you go and repost such a thing. It may not be what it seems, and all you may be doing is bringing unnecessary harm and grief to a person who doesn't not deserve it. Or the person or people may have already been caught and tried and convicted, and thus it would be pointless to repost such a photo.

Besides all of that, if the person is innocent (as this person is) you could be opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit from that person.

The lessons here are always be skeptical when you see something on the internet that outrages you, and do your research first before you repost something. It may not be what it seems.