IF you were on social media this weekend the chances are you saw a viral post about the ‘Lisbon Treaty 2022’ and how it will devastate our country if we remain in the EU.

This post was shared widely across social media in recent days, including on the ‘Bromsgrove Oracle’ Facebook page, with many expressing concerns about the treaty.

However, it turns out that the post was complete nonsense - ‘fake news’ as Donald Trump would say.

The speed at which the post was shared showed that the old phrase ‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes’ has never been more relevant.

The post claimed that if the UK stays in the EU it and other existing members of the bloc will lose their abstention and vetoes in 2020, become part of a federal EU nation by 2022, and be forced to adopt the Euro by 2022.

It also said there will be more than 200,000 job losses in the UK due to the London Stock Exchange moving to Frankfurt in 2020 to become part of the EU Stock Exchange, and that the UK will lose control of its borders by entering the Schengen Area in 2022.

All of the above is false.

For a comprehensive break-down of how the main claims in the post are wrong, Steve Peers, a law professor at the University of Essex, has picked apart each one on his Twitter feed @StevePeers.

The viral post has now been deleted from the Bromsgrove Oracle, following a flurry of 'fake news' complaints to Facebook.

However, the message is still being shared by thousands of people, because it takes far longer for these things to be removed than it does to publish them.

It is a problem that has plagued democracies across the world in the last few years, with many claiming that 'fake news' played a significant role in the Brexit vote and the 2016 US election.

Facebook is taking steps to tackle the phenomenon, however its actions are limited in strength and speed.

It is time for a rethink about the way social media companies operate.

Many people are calling for the firms to be subject to regulations, like the media, increasing the penalties for allowing certain things to be published on their websites.

I hope the Government is listening, our democracy may depend on it.