I know that I found out about his death the moment I logged into Facebook and one persons status read " we finally got Osama, proud to be an American." From their I instantly went to CNN's website to read the breaking news articles. What I found interesting was that I logged back onto Facebook only minutes later to find nearly every person that I'm friends with status about how we killed Osama Bin Laden. From there people were posting songs like God Bless America and America F**k yeah!
It was really interesting to see how quickly news spread about this over social media and the great amount of national pride people were showing because this terrorist was killed. This goes to show how Facebook and other social media website can be used succesfully to broadcast news instantly across the world.
Then I started think about the people who were posting all of these songs and status about Osama Bin Laden. I wanted to know how many people actually went out to different news sources to see if this was true like I did, or if people just saw their friends status and instantly believed it and started spreading the news and posting songs supporting America. I really wanted to know this because when I first read this persons status I didn't believe it, so I searched out for trusted news sources to verify it, and I wonder if other people did the same.
What made me question this was the thought that if everyone believed their friends status without checking the news or searching for more information and it wasn't true, what would happen. I looked at Facebook like almost a gossip column, and it is scary that one person can say one thing has happened and everyone will believe them, it is scary because people could make up rumors and spread them and misconstrue them.
Anyway it is always interesting to look at social media websites when major events happen to see how news can get misconstrued and changed simply by peoples Facebook status's.
