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I agree with your placing blame on traditional media displaying unverified information as facts, for sure. I guess the point I was trying to make is more that
by mcphilip 14y ago
I agree with your placing blame on traditional media displaying unverified information as facts, for sure. I guess the point I was trying to make is more that much of the incorrect info spread last week was a result of a chain reaction of people incorrectly interpreting breaking news.
For instance, on the matter of blaming the missing Brown student, I remember comments in a reddit thread that were quickly deleted showing a comparison of the face of the Brown student with the officially released FBI photos of "Suspect #2". The comment didn't claim they were the same person, it just raised the question. However, it only took minutes for the reddit hivemind to jump to the conclusion that the Brown student was "Suspect #2"
- austenallred 14y agoYes, the issue with the breaking news fiasco is that there's no more fact-checking built in. I believe that everyday people are just as capable to fact-check as anyone with a degree from Columbia J-School, but erasing something from the Internet is hard. News sites need to work in a way to show "this has been refuted as false" into their reports.
- Evbn 14y agoThe top ranking story on reddit.com/r/news was constantly updated with corrections/clarifications and citing sources with their level of trustworthiness.
- austenallred 14y agoIt was edited, but not until later in the day did someone suggest using strikeouts to debunk old material instead of "let's make sure we have the best info we have up here." If you're just editing the text, misconceptions remain.