Credit VDU Blog
# 8992
One of the tools we bloggers use to glean `real-time’ information is to filter twitter using a #hashtag, so as to view only those tweets dealing with particular subject. If you want Ebola-specific tweets, you search using #Ebola.
Yesterday I spent most of my time searching #Bárðarbunga, which some wag aptly pointed out was technically an #ashtag. But more on that later.
While you can often get good information off these twitter streams, they also contain a lot of nonsense. Some of it, dangerous or even damaging, such as the misinformation spread during and after Hurricane Sandy (see Caveat Twitter).
I isn’t just Twitter, of course.
A couple of weeks ago in A Look Down The Ebola Rabbit Hole I wrote about some of the alarmist, and false, information being spread on Youtube and Internet websites regarding the Ebola outbreak and the Yellowstone super volcano.
Some of these videos are very professional looking, and by cherry picking (or just making up) facts, they can be very convincing.
Today Ian presents a series of photos from twitter purporting to show the physical manifestations of Ebola infection (warning, you might want to have breakfast first). Unfortunately, most of these photos are NOT of Ebola patients.
Follow the link below to read:
Sunday, 24 August 2014
Fake/wrong Ebola virus disease images...
As if there isn't enough misery in the world that we need add false imagery to the mix.
Fake or hoax or just plain misunderstood images purporting to be from cases of Ebola virus disease are everywhere at the moment. The ones below are images I see regularly in the #ebola Twitter stream.
In a bit of synchronicity, in my blog yesterday - Bárðarbunga Volcano Aviation Alert Raised To Red - I mentioned the twitter feeds for this rumbling volcano (while warning Caveat Lector).
No sooner had a small sub-glacial `eruption’ been announced, hundreds of spectacular photos of volcanoes violently erupting (but NOT of #Bárðarbunga) – began to appear on twitter announcing the event.
`Artistic license’, I suppose. But disappointing nonetheless.
Although I occasionally rail against sensationalistic websites, videos, and pictures I know it is essentially tilting at windmills on my part. Sadly, there are far too many people out there willing to post nonsense – and a huge audience receptive to such tripe – to hope that it will go away.
