“At The Velocity of Lies” Reveals the Actual Hazard of Misinformation

On this op-ed, “At The Velocity of Lies” writer Cindy Otis explains the lesson her forthcoming novel imparts about misinformation. At The Velocity of Lies will likely be revealed by Scholastic on June 6, 2023 and is obtainable for pre-order now.

In the beginning of what was alleged to be Quinn Calvet’s epic junior 12 months, everybody at her college is speaking about two youngsters who had been kidnapped close to her small city in upstate New York. Her college-obsessed older sister Ava isn’t any exception, — Ava joins a brand new college membership known as Defend Children, run by Quinn’s now reformed center school-tormentor, devoted to discovering the lacking youngsters. However in my forthcoming YA thriller At The Velocity of Lies, that’s simply the beginning of Quinn’s issues. 

Quinn’s luck appears prefer it would possibly altering when her posts concerning the lacking kids and Defend Children immediately go viral (and she or he meets a cute man!). At first, Quinn is happy by the mass of recent followers and a focus her Instagram account is getting, and the concept what she is doing may really assist discover the children. In any case, even in actual life, getting consideration on-line will be addictive. However when Defend Children warns {that a} secret group is plotting extra youngster kidnappings, their predictions appear to be coming true when two of Quinn’s classmates go lacking someday. 

Quinn’s college and city are thrown into chaos as they hunt for his or her classmates. Rumors, conspiracies, and claims run rampant on-line and, earlier than she is aware of it, Quinn and her Instagram account are on the middle of all of it. Quinn should race to seek out out what occurred to the lacking youngsters amid the chaos earlier than it could actually occur once more. However the reality could be extra terrifying and lethal than anybody is aware of.

I wrote At The Velocity of Lies to indicate the harmful attain and energy of social media to form, affect, and alter lives. Although fiction, it’s impressed by very actual circumstances that all of us expertise when chaos unfolds on social media after a traumatic or important occasion. When one thing occurs on this planet, we naturally flip to the web for info, updates, and even to commiserate with others. And like Quinn, we frequently discover that information and info are jumbled all along with rumors, lies, and conspiracies — they usually’re shifting sooner than we will monitor. 

Simply as Quinn discovers within the e book, it may be tough and irritating to need to comb by means of what’s truth, rumor, conspiracy concept, and straight up fiction simply to seek out the reality. That’s as a result of social media can act just like the choose-your-own-adventure books that had been well-liked once I was younger. They had been tales through which you because the reader may primarily determine the journey you took. You’ll be given a selection in every chapter — for instance, you get to a fork within the street, do you need to go proper or left. Then, you’d be directed to a web page quantity and the story would proceed primarily based on what you determined and it’s solely primarily based in your selection. Within the e book, Quinn has to determine if she actually does need to know the reality about what is going on to her small city.