June 26, 2009
Posted by Kelly Rusk
If a celebrity death is reported on Twitter, should you believe it?
If it was Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett then yes…
As tragic as today was because the world lost both a TV icon and a pop superstar, it’s a testament to how much people *really* trust social media tools. If you were following along on Twitter, you may have also heard that Jeff Goldblum, Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt all died as well. Celebrity doomsday is here! But alas, all rumours. There were even rumours of MJ’s death being instigated by Iranian officials..
Is social media going to kill the mainstream media? Obviously not, if you sift through the search results, everyone was skeptical until it was reported by major outlets. Especially as the tool becomes more popular, the byproduct is really more crap-which means we still very much need to rely on traditional media to tell us what’s really going on.
This is certainly an issue that warrants more research & analysis. What do you think? Do you trust what you hear first on Twitter?
