Nov

21

Fake News and Digg

November 21, 2006 |

fake digg

A fake story proclaiming that all PS3s were recalled because of a defect made it to the Digg homepage. There has been quite some uproar about this, but really, is it that much of a big deal?

Anybody who has ever watched the news and actually knew something about the item reported knows that the mainstream media gets it wrong all the time.

The fact that the story is gone from Digg is a sign how well it works. Human editors make mistakes - on Digg and in the old media.

I think Mathew Ingram gets it right:

However, I’d like to point out that fake news routinely makes its way into newspapers and onto TV newscasts as well, and in those cases there are a heck of a lot more checks and balances in the system (theoretically at least) than there are at Digg.

In those cases, the fake news lingers in print and video — and in various databases — long after it has been shown to be wrong, which often gives rise to urban legends about people getting abducted so their organs can be removed, etc. At least in the Digg case, commenters on the story repeatedly pointed out how fake it was. That’s a service social media can offer that traditional media can’t (at least, not yet).

 

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1 Comment so far

  1. Erik Schwartz on November 21, 2006 4:01 pm

    If Digg had existed on October 30, 1938, the lead story would have been martians invade New Jersey.

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