Unintended Consequences Of Social Media Today (Part 2)
When People Resort To Conspiracy Theories To Confirm There Worldview (Notre-Dame Fire)
Something terrible
happened on April 15, 2019. A fire started at the Notre-Dame Cathedral
in Paris. The beloved building adored by many started to go up in smoke.
Many parts of the building was razed to the ground. Despite this
though, the firefighters made a very galient effort to prevent the fire
from spreading, saving many of the very precious treasures and religious
artifacts in the building. Significant parts of the Cathedral were
saved due to there effort.
The investigation started shortly thereafter. I'm been trying to show much more restraint when covering breaking events. As a result, I decided to not offer commentary on my Facebook Timeline until the investigation was able to get to the bottom of the fire. I knew though that within 12 to 24 hours of the fire, many memes would start showing up on Facebook offering there own causes about how the fire started.
Not surprisingly, I started to run into these memes within the expected time-frame. Without proof, several sources declared that the Cathedral started was started by Radical Muslim Extremist. I'm all for calling out Radical Muslim Extremist when they are the perpetrators of various crimes that they're behind, like the recent terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. However, I would only promote this claim if there's strong evidence provided to back it up. This was not the case in the Notre-Dame Fire.
There was a picture of a person on the edge of the building. Various memes declared that he was a Radical extremist. Of course, zooming in to the picture showed that the person was wearing his work-gear. This was quickly pointed out by various European fact-checkers. That "extremist" was actually a worker (I bet whoever made that claim feels stupid now!). There was also a photo presented as "evidence" that showed two men, appearing to be ethnically Arabs, laughing at the burning Cathedral. That photo that turned out to be doctored. As mentioned before, extremist should be called out if there is strong evidence proving that they were behind the attacks. However, presenting me a doctored image of two idiots laughing is not compelling evidence. Other conspiracy theories that started during this fire were those declaring that there was a media cover-up.
This is different from the terrorist bombings in Sri Lanka where Radical Islamist actually were responsible. I also didn't jump the gun on that one either, waiting until the evidence provided showed that they perpetrated the attacks.
Yet, these memes showed up right after the fire started. Are those promoting the claims declaring that the random man on the street without compelling evidence knows more than the investigators that are trained professionals in there field? Despite these claims being debunked, they were presented as "fact" because it confirmed to people's worldview about these sort of incidents. Something interesting did happen though shortly thereafter. At least on me anyway, there seemed to have been a massive drop-off in memes centering around the fire after the first day. Now, I was posting Snopes and BBC articles covering the incident on a regular basis, presenting actually information and facts.
I would consider myself in being in the "front-lines" of misinformation when events like this occur. I would normally run across 20-40 pieces from conspiracy-theory/fear-mongering sites before I would run across a article from a reputable site like Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Poynter, and the BBC, or some other objective/mostly objective source. One of these sites (linked below), was from the PolitiFact article covering the same topic. It's from Red, White, and F You, a site I've never heard of before the fire. They catered to the conspiracy theory rhetoric by declaring that the cause of the fire is terrorism.
However, I feel that the fact-checkers have played a much more active role in this event compared to those in the past. Despite this though, many inaccurate memes still got through during the first 24 hours. The effort to deal with fake news is a two-way street. It's the responsibility of these fact-checkers to provide the information needed to combat misinformation. It's also the role of the person subscribed to these fact-checkers (i.e. me)to present there findings and provide accurate information.
The investigation started shortly thereafter. I'm been trying to show much more restraint when covering breaking events. As a result, I decided to not offer commentary on my Facebook Timeline until the investigation was able to get to the bottom of the fire. I knew though that within 12 to 24 hours of the fire, many memes would start showing up on Facebook offering there own causes about how the fire started.
Not surprisingly, I started to run into these memes within the expected time-frame. Without proof, several sources declared that the Cathedral started was started by Radical Muslim Extremist. I'm all for calling out Radical Muslim Extremist when they are the perpetrators of various crimes that they're behind, like the recent terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. However, I would only promote this claim if there's strong evidence provided to back it up. This was not the case in the Notre-Dame Fire.
There was a picture of a person on the edge of the building. Various memes declared that he was a Radical extremist. Of course, zooming in to the picture showed that the person was wearing his work-gear. This was quickly pointed out by various European fact-checkers. That "extremist" was actually a worker (I bet whoever made that claim feels stupid now!). There was also a photo presented as "evidence" that showed two men, appearing to be ethnically Arabs, laughing at the burning Cathedral. That photo that turned out to be doctored. As mentioned before, extremist should be called out if there is strong evidence proving that they were behind the attacks. However, presenting me a doctored image of two idiots laughing is not compelling evidence. Other conspiracy theories that started during this fire were those declaring that there was a media cover-up.
This is different from the terrorist bombings in Sri Lanka where Radical Islamist actually were responsible. I also didn't jump the gun on that one either, waiting until the evidence provided showed that they perpetrated the attacks.
Yet, these memes showed up right after the fire started. Are those promoting the claims declaring that the random man on the street without compelling evidence knows more than the investigators that are trained professionals in there field? Despite these claims being debunked, they were presented as "fact" because it confirmed to people's worldview about these sort of incidents. Something interesting did happen though shortly thereafter. At least on me anyway, there seemed to have been a massive drop-off in memes centering around the fire after the first day. Now, I was posting Snopes and BBC articles covering the incident on a regular basis, presenting actually information and facts.
I would consider myself in being in the "front-lines" of misinformation when events like this occur. I would normally run across 20-40 pieces from conspiracy-theory/fear-mongering sites before I would run across a article from a reputable site like Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Poynter, and the BBC, or some other objective/mostly objective source. One of these sites (linked below), was from the PolitiFact article covering the same topic. It's from Red, White, and F You, a site I've never heard of before the fire. They catered to the conspiracy theory rhetoric by declaring that the cause of the fire is terrorism.
When events similar to his happen
in the past, these memes would continue for days-on-end. However, in
this particular case, there was a massive drop-off, especially after it
now appears that the fire appears to have been started as result of a
electrical short.
That how the meme train is perceived to me anyway. Someone else
could have also had a completely different experience and continued to
see memes catering to conspiracy-theorist continuing days after the
burning.
However, I feel that the fact-checkers have played a much more active role in this event compared to those in the past. Despite this though, many inaccurate memes still got through during the first 24 hours. The effort to deal with fake news is a two-way street. It's the responsibility of these fact-checkers to provide the information needed to combat misinformation. It's also the role of the person subscribed to these fact-checkers (i.e. me)to present there findings and provide accurate information.
Why fact-checkers couldn’t contain misinformation about the Notre Dame fire
Poynter
WWW.POYNTER.ORG
Notre Dame Fire Fuels Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory
FactCheck.org
WWW.FACTCHECK.ORG
A photo of 'Muslims laughing' in front of Notre Dame is doctored
PolitiFact
WWW.POLITIFACT.COM
Notre-Dame de Paris fire
Wikipedia
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
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