Built For Geeks (BFG) Blog

Why you shouldn’t believe tweets you see on Mainstream media

  While it would be remiss to make the claim that people don’t post stupid comments on web chat rooms and on twitter, it would be a dangerous assumption to believe that all the tweets you see on the MSM channels are indication of a significant segment of a population, much less REAL posts at all.

 Internet trolls certainly account for a sizable portion of the idiocy you see online, that is something that anyone with any web experience can verify within moments.  Trolls, simply put, do not represent any grouping of real people.  They are the manifestation of idiocy, but not generally racism or pedophilia or many of the other “legion” ills they are associated with – yet even Oprah, the media mogul she is, has been fooled by their chicanery.

  There is, however, another side to these “shocking tweets” that deserves further scrutiny.

  In this, I mean tweets that are outright fabrications of the very people who are reporting them.

  “What?  Conspiracy theories… again!” many of you might be saying.

  Nope.  I mean very real incidents of media manipulation that you can Google yourself… and not a single one will take you to conspiracy websites.  They’ll take you to the very MSM rivals who caught the other MSM organization lying their pants off – or to the actual MSM outlet, as captured and stored on Youtube channels for all the world to see.

  A recent story published in a variety of media outlets, including The Edge claimed that Russell Brand had run over a homeless man’s cart with his SUV.  Closer scrutiny of the event later revealed that he was merely acting as a good Samaritan to assist a homeless fellow who’d toppled his shopping cart.  Even now, most media outlets merely assert that he “claims” not to be responsible.  Ironically, even TMZ was unable to produce footage of Brand’s alleged wreck, but were able to find plenty of footage of him helping the man pick up his possessions.

  The story, it turns out, was just MSM trying to create a controversial headline where none existed.

  Of course, to MSM, such hijinks are nothing new.  CNN has created an entire library of easily found Youtube clips of them faking news stories – such as pretending to be live and gas attacked in Iraq against a blue screen, pretending to be live at Sandy Hook (complete with looping background footage that shows the same person enter their car in the same way no less than 8 times), and live at a number of terror sites where it was later confirmed that the reporter in question was in a Hollywood studio.

  But what does this kind of fakery have to do with tweets, you might ask?

  EVERYTHING.  It establishes that MSM is willing to fabricate news.  In such an environment, faking a few tweets would be child’s play.  There are even apps that allow you to create fake tweets.

  HOWEVER.  I’d be remiss not to include how faked tweets have been used recently to create hype.

  The problem has become so commonplace that SocialMedia Today authored a story titled, “Fake Twitter Hacks: The Latest PR Trend?

  http://socialmediatoday.com/node/1642221

iMedia Connection wrote a similar article about this as well.  I am sure there are others if you bother to look.  It’s a trend.  Sad but true… fake tweets are being used to manipulate you.

  Companies like McDonalds, Burger King, and Chipolte have all used faked twitter posts to create buzz.

  Of course, even the media has their hand in this cookie jar.  MTV and BET both used faked twitter posts to get free publicity and promote their product brands. 

Given these examples, why would be possibly believe that MSM news wouldn’t follow the same trend to create hype or sell an otherwise dead story?

This isn’t even as complicated as 1+1=2.  This is 1=1 time. 

Think before getting all riled up over some questionable tweet.   They want you angry and not thinking.  It’s how they push through agendas. 

And that’s my dos centavos.