Saturday, June 23, 2018

Fake News During Disasters

A disaster brings havoc where ever it hits, but that havoc now has another place to spread, on social media. The latest example is during the latest earthquake in Japan. People nowadays turn to social media for live updates on events, especially during commotion. This leads to false news being spread very rapidly. For example, "Many in Japan watched last week’s earthquake unfold online, with many posts going viral. These included user @satnfc2, who claimed that a zebra was on the loose following the shake, and @happyura12, who shared a photo of what appeared to be a crack in the city’s Kyocera Dome. ... These were all fake. Posts spreading misinformation following the earthquake became so problematic that the Osaka prefectural government told people to beware of baseless information and avoid spreading it further." A similar thing happened when during the last hurricane that hit Houston. 
[1 photo, 4 links, 1 quotation, 146 words]

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