A Florida Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee will hear Twitter’s viewpoint on how the online platform was bent to pull off a fake news hoax to damage the Miami Herald in its quest to cover the shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school. One tweet co-opted the identify of a reporter covering the tragedy and asked for photos of dead bodies at the school. Another fake story surfaced through Snapchat, this time a story purported to be from the Herald suggesting that a new mass shooting was in the works at another Miami-Dade county school. (McClatchy News, March 2, 2018, by Tim Johnson)
Parents of students in a school in the fake story bombarded the purported reporter of the story, Monique O. Mada, with messages trying to verify the rumor. That and other attacks hurt the Herald reporters’ ability to cover the tragedy as they dealt with online messages from worried or outraged citizens. (Poynter Institute, February 222, 2018, by Daniel Funke)
Perpetrators hijacking the Miami Herald banner and names of reputable reporters were able to damage the integrity of a respected news source, a great worry for a democratic society based on a free flow of truthful reports to inform the electorate. Twitter acknowledged that the social media could do more to fight nefarious uses of their platforms. (McClatchy News, February 24, 2018, by Tim Johnson)
For related FAC coverage, click here and here. Click here for a panel discussion “Fake News and the First Amendment” featuring FAC Executive Director David Snyder.