It's the medium, not the message that is the problem

It's the medium, not the message that is the problem

Hoaxers impersonate legitimate reporters

In the first incident, a perpetrator used a software tool to create two fake tweets that looked like they came from the account of Alex Harris, a Herald reporter preparing tributes to the slain students. One fake tweet asked for photos of dead bodies at the school and another asked if the shooter was white.
The reporter almost immediately began getting angry messages.

Source: Hoax attempts against Miami Herald augur broader information wars | McClatchy Washington Bureau
Hoaxers also created a fake Miami Herald news story that got shared online. Read the whole story.

“I think it’s part of this larger evolving system of misinformation,” said Aviv Ovadya, chief technologist at the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. “This is sort of the very, very beginning of something that could be much darker.”
The future will bring hoaxes that far surpass fake tweets and screenshots of fake stories, Ovadya said, noting that “fake video is just about here,” with tools that will make it easy even for amateurs to create images that are totally false but look real.

It’s the medium, not the message that is the problem.
This is social media.

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