Friday, April 20, 2018


Information online is easy to post, instant to view and can be shared quickly to a wide audience. While this can seem like a great advantage, there are also dangers that arise with the shift to online platforms. Fake news is one of the biggest dangers to social media and how we receive our information. Eric Tucker, posted a picture of several buses, stating that on the bus were paid protesters being bused to demonstrations against President-elect Donald J. Trump fueled a nationwide conspiracy theory. Tucker's post was shared at least 16,000 times on Twitter and more than 350,000 times on Facebook. The problem with this was, Tucker didn't know who was on the bus.  He stated “I’m also a very busy businessman and I don’t have time to fact-check everything that I put out there, especially when I don’t think it’s going out there for wide consumption.” This is a prime example of how fast false information gets spread because people are reluctant to look into facts before sharing a story.

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