The dangers of rumours in a riot..

[Stuart]

Not sure where to fit this (it could go equally in Current Affairs, Lifestyle or the Internet forum), so if one of my fellow mods wishes to move it, free free.

The BBC have an interesting article on the dangers of rumours in certain situations at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14490693

Apparently, there were several rumours that spread around various social networks about this week's riots. Anyone of which could have sparked further trouble.

The problem with Social networks (and I am counting forums as a sort of social network) seems to be that a significant number of people take what they read online as the truth. It's not, always. But, they take it as the truth. They then tell their friends (on or off line), and their friends tell their friends, and so on. So, one person can very easily say something that is incorrect (whether by mistake or deliberately), and very quickly, hundreds if not thousands will think that what they said is correct.

Take, for example, the Internet Explorer users are stupid story. Someone set up a website that purported to have evidence that they are. Someone passwed the URL to a couple of news media companies, and all of a sudden, at the very least The Register and the BBC are telling tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of readers that Internet Explorer users are thick, and people believe them because they are both respected news sources.

Or take my own experiences. If you believe Twitter, my local shopping centre was absolutely devastated by the riots on Monday. Primark alone was blown up at least 7 times over the space of 5 hours, and Top Shop/Top Man was blown up 3 times. When a journalist from the New Statesman wrote an article saying they were wrong (and providing photos as proof), several twitter users threatened him with legal action.

While both examples I gave above actually happened, they aren't that serious. They could have been though. If someone passed a rumour around that someone had died at the hands of the Police, that could have sparked another riot, and caused death(s).

The article does give the advice that you should attempt to filter out the rumours from the truth, and we were trying to get people to do this in the riot thread, but when you are told something 40 times in the space of 5 minutes, it can be difficult to determine whether it's correct or not.

[denphone]

l do agree with you Stuart but it is so hard to decipher whats true or not as most of us on this forum take our information from online newspapers and search engine sites and although we try to filter out the truth from exaggerated rumours its only afterwards that the truth gets picked out from the rumours and we are the wiser for that.

[Chris]

I disagree. It generally isn't hard to decipher what's true from what's not on the interwebs. All it requires is the exercise of human will and some basic intellect - the deliberate choice to engage your ability to think about what you're being told rather than simply accepting it, simply because someone else said it.

As a rule of thumb, I would say don't believe anything you read on Facebook or Twitter unless you can verify it from a second source that you trust to have some sort of fact checking/quality control in place.

Despite the fashion for getting all frothy and moist-eyed about the rise of the so-called 'citizen journalist'* it is still the case that the most trustworthy news sources are those that have the resources to pay people to do proper fact checking.

* a.k.a. Bloggers that take themselves a bit too seriously

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chris

I disagree. It generally isn't hard to decipher what's true from what's not on the interwebs. All it requires is the exercise of human will and some basic intellect - the deliberate choice to engage your ability to think about what you're being told rather than simply accepting it, simply because someone else said it.

As a rule of thumb, I would say don't believe anything you read on Facebook or Twitter unless you can verify it from a second source that you trust to have some sort of fact checking/quality control in place.

Despite the fashion for getting all frothy and moist-eyed about the rise of the so-called 'citizen journalist'* it is still the case that the most trustworthy news sources are those that have the resources to pay people to do proper fact checking.

* a.k.a. Bloggers that take themselves a bit too seriously

l do not take information from Facebook or Twitter but do try to look for sources in which l believe are telling the truth or at least close to the truth but even reputable sources can distort the truth if it suits them and their political whims.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Chris

it is still the case that the most trustworthy news sources are those that have the resources to pay people to do proper fact checking.

Then you have to hope that they do actually fact check.......sadly they often don't. These days I read even the 'quality' press with suspicion.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Then you have to hope that they do actually fact check.......sadly they often don't. These days I read even the 'quality' press with suspicion.

Yes they can put a one sided slant to a story and often do.

[Maggy J]

They should rename Twitter to Chinese Whispers..

Anyway I think my sig covers what I think..

[wolferine]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

They should rename Twitter to Chinese Whispers..

LOL!
But anyway, I do agree that the rumors spread on social networks can be rather unreliable at times. Then again, it's always better to be safe than sorry, which is why we would retweet or repost the news even though we don't know if it's true. I'm not sure how to solve this situation right now too, but I would say I'd rather play safe