Manipulation of Social Media

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The news emerging from Egypt has been deemed 'unreliable' by several investigative reporters.

The biggest plus for Facebook and Twitter has been the ability of people to "get the word out" about what was really happening in an uprising or protest or a crackdown. It's provided dissidents and the oppressed with a method of informing the world about their plight.

The increasing manipulation of social media is showing in the Egyptian crisis. Claims of rape by protestors was passed on as "fact" from a video - and turns out the video was from years ago. Claims of buildings being burned had reporters calling those businesses to see how much damage had been done - only to find it was business as usual and nothing had happened.

The tendency of social media users to pass on information without verifying the truth of a claim only help those who aim to manipulate situations.

It's easy to become "outraged" over alarming videos or facts - but it's smarter to make sure you aren't helping a bunch of jerks by promoting their agendas for them and making nonsense and lies go viral.
#off topic forum
  • You are exactly right Kay, and the problem that so many want to and will believe without verification,and also pass it on as fact.
  • Actually that's good advice for the mainstream media as well. There have been many times they've reported lies and half-truths as fact. Many times I think it's intentional because they are promoting their own agenda.
    • [1] reply
    • Will be interesting to see what happens with the lawsuit against NBC for the doctoring of the Zimmerman phone call. NBC is claiming is was "accidentally edited" but since the edited version is what allowed them to go on their rants about the situation, that could be a hard sell if it gets to court.

      Clearly there are agendas - but sometimes I think the news idjits are just trying to out-broadcast each other.
  • Banned
    Something tells me the idiot on the street with a phone/camera isn't any brighter than media.

    It's all useless serve serving propaganda.




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  • At least we HAVE a social media. Can you imagine what things would be like right now with only the corporate media with their ties to gov (often FAMILY ties) to feed us their desired info? Even Hitler didn't have the media sewn up like our current admin does. If they get into the net and take it over.........what we will get is tantamount to nothing. Propaganda only. If you think it's hard to cut through what goes on in social media - try cutting through 100% propaganda. I'm trained especially for that and it is a mess out there.

    As far as reading stuff on social media - people share what is shared with them. You're supposed to just pick out what piques your interest and research it down. Everyone posts something inaccurate or even stupid sometimes. It's not like the media though, that is paid to purposefully manipulate thought and social patterns.
  • This is very true and that a lot of people will immediately believe everything they see on the Internet is making things worst.
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    Manipulation of Social Media

    The news emerging from Egypt has been deemed 'unreliable' by several investigative reporters. The biggest plus for Facebook and Twitter has been the ability of people to "get the word out" about what was really happening in an uprising or protest or a crackdown. It's provided dissidents and the oppressed with a method of informing the world about their plight.