Social Media Gets Duped

Muhammad Saleem, a very perceptive blogger who is also a top submitter at Digg and Netscape, has fake news routinely into newspapers and onto TV newscasts as well, and in those cases there are a heck of a lot more checks and balances in the system (theoretically at least) than there are at Digg. In those cases, the fake news lingers in print and video - and in various databases - long after it has been shown to be wrong, which often gives rise to urban legends about people getting abducted so their organs can be removed, etc. At least in the Digg case, commenters on the story repeatedly pointed out how fake it was. That's a service social media can offer that traditional media can't (at least, not yet). Update: Muhammad and I have been having a discussion via IM about the fact that Digg appears to have going against its stated principles as a social media site. What do you think? Bookmark Murdok: Mathew Ingram is a technology writer and blogger for the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper based in Toronto, and also writes about the Web and media at www.mathewingram.com/media