I know it’s already a joke that people shouldn’t trust what they read online. But that doesn’t stop people from trusting what they read online. Well, here’s some more evidence that you shouldn’t even necessarily trust who you read online. From the Baltimore Sun:
The company’s specialty is rooting out cyber criminals lurking on social media. And when West Baltimore erupted in rioting Monday, its employees felt compelled to apply their skills. ZeroFox worked into the night tracing tweets and Facebook accounts that shared photos of looting and violence.
What they found was that much of the activity was coming from well outside of Baltimore, in some cases from Russia, China, India and the Middle East.
“I just killed a pig,” wrote one tweet, showing a bloodied police officer slumped on the ground. Not only was the photo of an officer in South America, but the account sharing it was not in Baltimore.
Another tweet, which appeared to be coming from the Baltimore police, asked, “Why are we even tweeting?” and suggested that the protesters couldn’t read. It also referred to them with a racial slur.
But the account was one of nearly 100 impersonating police, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Gov. Larry Hogan and the Maryland National Guard that popped up amid the protests.
Read the whole thing. Erroneous information online is a problem, but perhaps not so much as the deliberate misinformation online. It’s usually good practice to ask about any piece you read; “Can I verify that this person is real?” “Can I verify this information is true?” “What objective would this information support?” “Am I getting the entire picture, or just someone’s perspective or agenda?”
Question everything–including my insistence on your questioning everything. I may have a hidden agenda.