Don’t believe everything you see on the internet, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Carrying a mother’s legacy into the world | North State Voices, Making the most of your local squash harvests | North Valley Vegan, Chad Mayes giving ‘top two’ its biggest test | California Focus, Butte Creek the site for ‘Friends Mini Invitational’ | Tee to Green. It’s a distinction that needs to be better understood. While all of this is notable social science in and of itself, the value of Stuart’s ingenious study is to show that there are methods to the madness of the streets — and they’re often employed to prevent bloodshed, not exacerbate it. These online images could include, for instance, guns and other weapons that don’t actually belong to the people displaying them. List of internet scammers is not very useful, but a list of internet scams is, here’s why “On social media, they use all these different ways to challenge the authenticity of somebody else. Many who grow up in unsafe neighborhoods — where gangs set shifting boundaries that, when crossed, could have mortal consequences — have found that social media can provide an effective security system against being victimized. If he can convince everybody at his school, for instance, that he is well-armed and well-backed by a gang, then maybe he can walk home safer. Another technique called “catching lacking” — this one believed to be the likeliest to spur violent retaliation — involves confronting a rival when he is with family or in another setting in which violence wouldn’t necessarily be expected, and then recording and disseminating footage of the target not taking the bait. There … Some techniques for doing so include “cross referencing,” in which young men publicize images proving their rivals were embellishing their toughness. Esther Cepeda’s email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda. ~Abraham Lincoln "Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it." In his paper “Code of the Tweet: Urban Gang Violence in the Social Media Age,” published last month in the journal Social Problems, Stuart outlines how a virtual stand-off can often replace real-life conflicts. CLICK HERE TO TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS. "The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine." Not surprisingly, gang-associated youth might use social media to not only seem tougher than they are, but also to publicly undermine the authenticity of their rivals’ performances of toughness, strength and masculinity.