The Past
As a digital native, I was told to question everything I read on the internet. In my early years, this applied to random pop-ups promising a free iPad or another enticing reward. When working on school reports, I was always careful about where I was getting my information. What was the url? Did it end in .gov or .edu? Over time, I learned how to identify which sites were trustworthy and which were not. Now, as a college student, it has become harder to tell a credible source from a fake one with people online getting smarter and having more advanced software programs like Photoshop. A prime example dates back to 2012, when a tweet from user @comfortablysmug announced that the New York Stock Exchange was flooded. This ended up being false, but because it was mentioned by a trusted CNN anchor the public panicked and unnecessary stress was added to the already stressful time during Hurricane Sandy.
The Present
The internet, specifically social media, is how most people get their news. From Facebook posts to the trending hashtags on Twitter, it is more difficult to take the time to visit a verified news site to learn about the goings-on of the world because opening a social media is faster. The danger of this is when people post news that is false and it gets spread to the general public, sometimes causing damage when it never happened. You used to have to go into a crowded place and yell “fire!” to cause this much chaos, but now a single tweet can do just as much if not more.
We know what to do when someone yells “fire” in a movie theater. The yeller will not be breaking the law unless they cause others to break the law. So is this what we do when people tweet false statements that cause nation-wide panic? Twitter user @comfortablysmug faced this question when the public pushed for legal actions to be taken against him. No charges would stick, despite the harm his tweet caused. So then the question becomes how do we prevent false information like the tweet by @comfortablysmug from getting to reputable sources so that we can prevent unnecessary panic?
The Future
Society spends most of their time on social media, therefore it is the best way to reach them. As PR professionals, making sure that everything put out by an organization is factual and accurate is the more important than getting it out quickly. It is better to have the public wait for a post than to give them something that has not been checked and make sure that the sources that the information is coming from has been thoroughly reviewed. To help keep the information still going out in a timely manner, it is helpful to have someone on the PR team dedicated solely to fact reviewing. In addition, a statement can be posted on social media stating that facts are being gathered and in order to make sure the information is correct the company is looking into it and a full response will be posted soon. This satisfies the need of today’s society for information as quickly as possible while making sure that the information is accurate. There is always the temptation to post something right away, but there is always a chance that photos could be photoshopped or evidence could be misleading, and it is always better to question facts and find proof, which gets a response out a little later, than have to retract a statement and lose credibility that will take a long time to build back up.