Misinformation circulating on social media is nothing new, but the latest example shows how misinformation can spread like a wildfire and sometimes overlooked by even the fact-checkers themselves.
It's unclear who started it, but a tweet posted from world-renowned fictional author Steven King was more than horrifying for Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
It reads, "DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students and professors to register political views with the state." Shocking, because it's not true.
Eventually, it would be flagged by twitter's birdwatch, a community-based fact-check group with help from Reuters and the Associated Press.
But by then the tweets had already spread like a wildfire, quickly retweeted by prominent news journalists and political figures from all over.
Twitter’s misinformation policy says the company defines misleading content as “claims that have been confirmed to be false by external, subject-matter experts or include information that is shared in a deceptive or confusing manner.”
Alex Mahadevan is the director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute. He said, "this falls in line with something we call zombie claims. These false claims have been debunked that surface from time to time. And sometimes, it can be just a celebrity tweeting out something, and it picks up traction."
In this case, several posts on social media about a bill signed last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis caught a lot of attention for allegedly requiring students and staff...
Lawsuit Filed Over Alleged Unsubstantiated Medical Cannabis Claims A class-action lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Illinois, accusing three prominent multi-state cannabis operators—Cresc...