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misinformation

Twitter needs to deal with the Twitter Accuracy Problem

Twitter's had a bad couple of weeks.

First, the Boston marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt led many (including me) to question the role of fast-moving, potentially inaccurate real-time Twitter reporting and its effect on mainstream news.

Then today, a false tweet from a hacked Associated Press Twitter account claimed that the White House had been bombed and that President Obama had been injured. The news caused a sudden plunge in the stock market (and, one can probably assume, some massive profit-taking by the hackers).

Twitter has always had an accuracy problem. It's a lot of voices, its information … Read more

Twitter inundated with tornado-photo hoaxes

I'm not exaggerating here--for a brief while on Thursday evening in New York, the weather felt so apocalypse-by-way-of-Hollywood that I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if I had spotted Godzilla stomping down Sixth Avenue from the vantage point of the midtown Starbucks where I'd taken refuge from the intense wind and pummeling cloudbursts. There were, in fact, two tornadoes making mischief in the neighboring boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens that evening.

So when an impressive photo showing a tornado in ominous proximity to the Statue of Liberty began making the rounds on Twitter, it was perfectly … Read more