In the Information Age, the Internet handles more business, traffic, and social interaction in general than ever before. However, with equal access for all entities including scientists and journalists as well as high school dropouts, there is not as much as editorial influence for what content gets seen and trusted by the public. These essays all describe instances where misinformation spread online and affected many people's perception of the world.
Minor's piece was about his follies editing a TV wiki for a forgotten cartoon "Street Sharks." This misinformation was harmless and gave many people a reason to revisit the show. However, the new characters and added episodes could easily be fact checked with a quick review of the real episode log. Multiple sources obviously without strong oversight allowed Minor's deception to lay dormant on their website for years until astute observers noticed the errors almost a decade after the fact. In order to combat these errors, Minor himself states that the moderators only need to watch the show to understand what was forged.
Lee wrote about the hysteria and wild speculation surrounding the investigation of the Boston Marathon bomber. People across the country ran wild with accusations against people of color at the crime scene on surveillance cameras. Everyone turned into a junior investigator and posted their findings on message boards like reddit. Without anyone fact-checking the evidence, multiple people got wrongly accused and suffered public shaming for their alleged terrorism. In any case, the accusers should have had a basis for their accusation instead of just photographs.
Castacchio wrote a thesis about Twitter needing better verification for important news. News from major incidents can change rapidly due to new information, but once something receives Top Tweet status, it gains priority in people's feed. The author proposes using an upvote-downvote system to determine what was fake or real.
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