EOTO Terms & Concepts

 Today's society is heavily relied on by social media to do several everyday activities, such as check the local weather, learn about daily news, read and respond to text messages, or watch your favorite videos on YouTube. However, you must be careful when using any form of social media because all of them could have either misinformation or disinformation. Some people might not understand the difference between these two terms, so let me clear that out of the way. Misinformation is information that is inaccurate but was not intended to be inaccurate; it was an accident. Examples of misinformation could include incorrect weather predictions or source citation that could lead to a different source. Misinformation is done by accident, but, if you are not careful, might not recognize this misinformation in everyday activities and believe it to be true right away. Disinformation is information released to the public that is intended to be inaccurate. However, this is less common, but not uncommon at all. Examples of disinformation could include a government cover-up or a Twitter post.

On Sunday, December 4, 2016, a shooting incident occurred in Washington DC at a local pizza shop called "Comet Ping Pong." The restaurant was filled with customers and their families while a man walked into the restaurant with a rifle and began to shoot carelessly. Crimes like this happen all the time, but the motive for why it happened is the shocking part. False social media posts on Twitter widely spread on the internet stating that this pizza shop was the "base for a pedophile sex ring involving Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a former Secretary of State, and members of her campaign." Activists that support the opinions of the right side, who believed the tweets to be true, began to send threats towards the managers of the restaurant. A few months earlier, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of private emails were being investigated by the FBI because of suspicion of involvement. After investigation, a large amount of tweets about newly discovered email related to pedophile sex ring. These posts were widely spread across the entire nation on both social media and bulletin boards.


This whole story is quite an extreme circumstance where information is interpreted differently than it is intended to. Although this was never confirmed, I believe this would be labeled misinformation, as it seems that the public falsely understood the tweets that Comet Ping Pong was actually the base for pedophile sex rings and if Clinton was actually involved in any of this. This generation and the generations that follow are most susceptible to either misinformation or disinformation because we are always surrounded by social media and fake news, most of the time without even realizing it. A very important skill moving forward is going to be the recognition of misinformation and react to it in a responsible manner. This skill is called "fact-checking" and it starts with checking the source if it is credible. This includes checking the source for author contact information, purpose of the website, external links, correct and sensible timeliness, and accuracy. 


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