Remember last week, when one tweet caused the stock market to lose 150 points and over $136 billion dollars in an instant? It did recover, but it’s a sign of powerful social media is, and how easily it can be abused.
You can’t blame this all on the hoaxer. It was the Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal agency watchdog for business and stock exchange, who allowed Twitter and Facebook to be broadcasting sites. This hoax went out to financial data terminals, which sent that data to financial institutions, and on and on. I wonder what would have happened if the hoax was never found out. Let’s not forget: this hoax broke out around the same time?when Syrian hackers attacked the Associated Press.
These Syrian hackers are the main suspects of this hoax. Keep in mind Syria is in the midst of a civil war and in the middle of an unstable region. Fortunately, enough traders were close enough to?a media outlet?to know there were no injuries or explosions at the White House. Then things went back to normal, sort of.
The SEC and other agencies are working hard to prevent a repeat of this. Of course, Twitter and Associated Press are keeping quiet. But lets’ get closer to home. How many tweets or Facebook posts or You Tube videos do you know have put out false doctrine? Remember the social media hoax that said Eddie Murphy was dead? Or the one where Bill Cosby made this ‘I’m 83 and Tired’?post and it wasn’t really him? They didn’t even get Dr. Cosby’s age right.?I have a solution: Don’t believe everything you read! When you hear something this fantastic, check and double check these sources. One thing about social media, it’s easier to catch on to these lies.?What other lies will be fed to us next?