SINCE the invention of social media and its entrenchment into everyday life, the rise and rise of citizen journalism has threatened to boil over to a point of no return.
A famous example of this is the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.
This was one of the first major acts of terrorism that occurred during the digital age, and in the years since has been subject to much review.
More than 27 million tweets on the bombing were published that week alone, the most talked about topic on the platform that year.
Organisations and government departments used Twitter to get up-to-date information out quickly, but so too did your regular Joe Blow.
In 2015, Santa Clara University published an ethics case study on social media’s role during the four-day manhunt for those responsible for the bombings.
While traditional outlets like the Washington Post co-operated with the FBI – handing over leads, photos, and videos – users of new outlets like Reddit concocted their own theories.
One notorious example of this is the false accusation that university student Sunil Tripathi was a suspect after his parents made a post seeking help to locate him after he went missing.
Reddit was forced to issue an apology after the claims were found to be false.
The Covid-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the problem of the spread of misinformation through citizen journalism.
Citizen journalists do have a role to play, and they can be good sources of information, particularly those first on the scene.
But that doesn’t mean their information shouldn’t be scrutinized.
Just last week a couple of individuals walked through a cordoned-off site in Riverlea, revealing that historical aboriginal bones had been disturbed during work.
While the intentions might have been good, ultimately it might have done more damage, as stated by Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation chair Tim Aguis on page 3 of today’s Bunyip.
It was alluded that the discovery had been covered up, and that the Kaurna community should know about it. As it turns out, Elders had already been notified and were working alongside the developer to deal with the matter in a culturally sensitive way.
The point of all this? Be wary of where you get your information from.
