Recently, a liberal-leaning acquaintance from high school posted on Facebook warning about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids being performed.

A few days later, I saw a similar post from another friend. As a journalist, the posts hit a raw nerve.

These posts contained next to no evidence; they sourced “a friend” or a “friend’s brother” stating that ICE is running a raid and then asked people to share the news by reposting.

Now, I must admit this post was shared, as are most things, with the best intentions. However, I was left shaking my head and asking many questions: What was the real source of this information? What, if any, good would sharing it on Facebook do? Is some jerk sitting giggling after making the whole thing up and seeing well-intentioned people taking the bait?

The post had many red flags: scant sources, it was baiting for shares … on and on.

At best, I saw this as another example of “fake news” and opinion bait muddying the information waters these days.

The Associated Press reported recently that schools are beginning to teach children how to spot fake news. They ask people to fact-check and they teach students to be leery of anonymous sources, possible satire and questionable sites.

“I think only education can solve this problem,” Pat Winters Lauro, a professor at New Jersey’s Kean University who began teaching a course on news literacy this semester, told the AP.

But I argue education is only one step of what’s needed. The bigger one: common sense, which starts with the slightest bit of discernment.

These days, we’re all over-eager to latch onto sources that agree with us, that share our views and reinforce our views. But it’ s not as simple as real vs. fake news.

I recently found a chart attorney Vanessa Otero created online that ranks national media outlets on two charts of a scale: The left to right goes from liberal outlets to conservative outlets with the middle being partisan, while the top to bottom ranks media outlets in terms of ones that tackle complex issues at the top, ones that meet high standards in the middle and simple/sensationalist clickbait at the bottom. (You can find it here: http://www.codlrc.org/content/news-sources-journalistic-quality-partisan-bias)

The ones in the middle are considered good, reliable news sources. For the most part, those include National Public Radio, The New York Times, the AP, Reuters and most local newspapers — not to toot our own horns.

It ranks others as a great source of in-depth news: The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Slate, etc. (Note: Most of those still fall a bit on the left or the right).

It then points out “utter garbage/conspiracy theories” sites and “sensational or clickbait” sites, with news sources like Breitbart and Infowars near the far bottom right and David Wolfe and Occupy Democrats near the far bottom left.

Take this site for what it is:  It’s a tool to help you gauge your sources of information.

From my perspective, how you gauge your information is less important than the act itself. With the barrage of information coming from politicians, news sources, fake news sources, clickbait media, and our friends and families, it’ s most important to use a little common sense and take everything that comes out with a grain of salt.

In simple terms, if something seems too good to be true, utterly outlandish or shared with sketchy sources, it should raise a red flag.

Yes, education will be important as people fight the battle of information, but a little common sense and discernment is the true start.

I felt like my privacy and voice had been taken.

I tried logging into my Instagram feed to find my account gone. I’ d been logged out of my account and my Gmail was no longer even recognized as being tied to any account.

I did a little digging the next day and determined my account had been deleted for some bizarre reason. So I reluctantly created a new account, but I soon stumbled on my old account with the name changed to “innalufo.”

Now I know what you’re thinking: Gee, Jason’s handful of Instagram followers are really missing out on Jason’s creative genius right now. Yes, that was sarcasm

But my initial annoyance and anger gave way to a feeling of violation — someone else was in control of something I’d put my name to; heck, I could go so far as feeling like someone had taken my voice and could be using it.