Last week's Boston Marathon bombings were devastating. And like any devastating event that occurs in America, people who wanted to find out what happened were glued to their screens. However for the first time ever, many of those were not television screens. People logged on to Twitter, Reddit, Fourchan, and Tumblr to get the latest news that the mainstream media didn't always pick up on. People were discussing and poring over pictures taken before the bombs exploded in an attempt to find the notorious Boston Bomber. Sometime afterwards, the whole country was in an uproar because apparently someone had sent ricin to the president and a factory in Texas exploded. I heard about all of this, just while I was at school. The prevalence of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit have impacted not only our ability to connect with our friends and family, but also our ability to connect to the news and the events going on in the world around us. The problem that occurs, of course, with being connected 23/7 (you have to sleep sometime I figure) that when the news makes a mistake, for example, the Associated Press Twitter Account getting hacked and reporting attacks on the white house, the repercussions it has on a totally connected world, for example, the Dow Jones dropping 140 points (a ridiculous amount for repercussions to an event that wasn't even true) almost immediately after, are mind blowing. Basically, this story is a cautionary tale to check other sources before acting in the real world. Even if a respectable source sends out something, in this case the Associated Press was extremely reputable, make sure other sources are reporting similar stories.
Works Cited:
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/ap-twitter-account-hacked-posts-false-white-house-scare-6C9560165
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/23/4257392/ap-twitter-hacked-claims-explosions-white-house-president-injured
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/04/23/ap-twitter-hack-was-trivial/2107427/
