Misinformation In Social Media

Misinformation: “false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive.”

Misinformation has become a very common issue recently. We are often exposed to multiple forms of media as we search for information and entertainment, so we tend to expose ourselves to various topics and trends. You can usually see misinformation spread when a certain agenda is being pushed to increase positive feedback on one side and negative feedback on the other, especially in more biased situations. 

If you are active on the internet, you may see many news stations or social media accounts with large followings spreading information and due to their following, people will have a higher chance of believing them without doing proper research. This leads to this information being spread, since people will begin to repost and share this information, even though it's false. Social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc, are the places this will happen the most. 

Misinformation on the internet may not seem like much, but it has been shown to be very dangerous as it is mostly used to spread false rumors and lies on certain people or businesses, especially those who are popular, ruining their reputation with a horrible image. This is commonly known as “cancel culture”  which can ruin careers in a matter of days over the internet. Even if the information turns out to be false, the damage is usually done by then and people will always have a different view of the person or company who was targeted. 

A large example of this back in 2022 is the when the Youtuber known as  “OW_SVB” who was falsely accused of grooming someone, ruining his career, however, the accuser last second revealed themselves stating they did it to “prove how easy it was to accuse someone of this”, yet the damage was already done.

   Kwite was forced to unmask to prove his innocence in his hour and a half long response video titled “for the record”. It turned out that Kwite was the victim in the situation and the accuser had manipulated him on multiple occasions.

After he was proven innocent, his accuser refused to apologize, and disappeared from the internet. 

However, there are times where misinformation is easily spotted, and the person who spreads said information is able to be called out and no damage will be done.

SVB’s response video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC3ePYUZBUQ

Kwite's response video:

https://youtu.be/R4ZVkLxwCBI?si=-thEaFirt0KJELpD