Twitter hoax has been very frequent. Recently, The globe and Mail and other media fell for a hoax tweet about the shootings in LAX last Friday.
In case you have not heard about the shootings that occurred at LAX, a gunman opened fire near Terminal 3, killing a TSA agent and several people were injured. However, a tweet from @HeadlineNews said that a former NSA director had been shot dead at the airport. The account that this twitter account had was also the same logo as @BreakingNews.This caused many confusion among the people who followed the news on Twitter.
After reading the news on Twitter, The Globe and Mail then reported of the death of the NSA Chief. They then removed the false information and apologized.
Social media has changed the way we read news. Twitter helps individuals to read news conveniently at the palm of their hands and the most important part of the news only appears in a 140 character Twitter update. Important news should always have a credible source. Especially when it comes to news as big as the LAX shooting. Twitter has already introduced the "official" Twitter account for many news and also celebrity accounts. Therefore, they should be more strict when it comes to publishing informations like this.
Social media like Twitter can alter the way we read news, especially for the younger generation. If there is no control over news that are true and untrue, there will be a big problem as individuals will not be able to differentiate the truth and hoax. Even though there is an importance in using social media for reliable news source, I would rather find out more information first before determining whether a news is fact or fiction.
Reference:
Twitter News Hoax
No comments:
Post a Comment