Firefox Would Like to Assure You: The Fox Isn’t Going Anywhere

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I first heard the disturbing news over a group chat. Firefox was getting rid of the fox!

It took over Reddit, it trended on Twitter. Firefox was doing away with the fox on the logo! Now it was becoming something abstract, unknown, unfriendly!

Well, no, not really. Mozilla’s all about avoiding misinformation, so they decided to clear things up in a blog post.

The Fox Lives!

Yes, it’s true, the Firefox logo has gotten more abstract over time, but it’s not ditching the fox. Instead, someone found the Firefox brand site. There they found a logo used for the Firefox brand, not the Firefox browser. The Firefox brand includes some of their other products, like their Firefox Monitor service, which alerts you if your information has been part of a data breech. Each product, like the Firefox browser itself, has a separate logo. But the brand itself uses an abstracted “fiery marble” to represent all of the products under the “Firefox” brand name. That’s the logo in the meme.

Personally, I’m still upset they got rid of their original test pilot mascot.

That’s the real tragedy. Look at that little adventurer! I signed up to test nightly builds just to get this little guy on my side! This is like the Firefox Nightly logo looks like right now, as of this writing:

The Firedoge browser will replace Firefox in the next update*. Much fast. Such private.

*(No, not really).

How Misinformation Spreads

Interestingly, this was a good indicator of how memes can spread misinformation far faster than even the most biased of right-wing news networks. Memes, “edgy” “humor,” and YouTube videos have allowed extremist ideals to seep into social consciousness. A shocking amount of disinformation and hate springs out of memes and jokes spread online. Racist memes, like “joke” names for COVID-19 (some spread by our former president) have lead to a dramatic spike in anti-Asian hate crimes in many western countries. In NYC, hate crime against Asian people is up 1,900%. Many have heard the “one joke” transphobic people trying to invalidate gender identities, especially non-binary identities, go to: “I identify as an attack helicopter.” These jokes and memes spread across social networks, bringing with them misinformation and hate.

Memes spread. That’s what they are. They are small pieces of information that are easy to extrapolate more information on due to social context. The whole purpose of a meme is to use as little information as possible, an image template with some text, often also templated, to pass along a joke or message in a familiar way. Memes are made to spread. They feel like a fun inside joke the entire internet is in on. However, that means memes can carry hate speech and misinformation faster than real information can.

Verify Everything

It’s interesting that a meme about a fox logo was a fantastic micro-study into how memes can spread misinformation. You likely have a Firefox logo on your dock or desktop (and if you don’t, you should!). This was an easy meme to disprove.

You should verify all information you find online. It’s why I make a habit out of sharing the sources for my articles, especially those that I’ve injected editorial opinion into. You should especially be cautious of memes. They’re often intentionally misleading for comedic effect, like how you sometimes exaggerate a funny story to get a bigger laugh. The problem is, the fact that something is an exaggeration, based on a joke, or intentionally trying to misinform people, gets lost as a meme gets shared. Memes are intentionally vague, don’t treat them like fact.

The fox is here to stay. And, frankly, it’s bringing a new message now: stop believing everything you find online.

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Source: Mozilla