After the evening of Fête de la Musique, nearly 145 suspected cases of 'random syringe attacks' were reported. Yet, to date, not a single case of drug injection has been confirmed.
These allegations caused outrage in this community. Let this be a lesson in critical thinking.
The original news was posted twice. Right now these posts have a score of 80 and 456 upvotes.
Being active on Lemmy has pretty much convinced me that claims about some evil algorithm being responsible for all the ills of social media are baseless.
I mean, its a news article posted to a news forum. And if we look at the comments the parent comments for the top 7 threads are:
-unrelated anecdote
-praose for the idea behind the festival
-something removed (probably some random racist shit). Notably the child comments seem to call out the original sentiment.
-a request for more info
-tangential conversation about what defines a “major incident”
the classic “OMG wtf”
a comment likening this to another “needle panic”
I don’t know if your issue is with the content or the reactions but I don’t see how either points to the issues with social media. It’s a bit sensationalist and some of the comments arent exactly thought provokers, but there’s nothing (that I can see) that screams “social media bad”
Being active on Lemmy, not this one incidence in particular. This is one example showing that the spread of misinformation does not require any sinister force pulling strings.
I have an interest in internet regulation and so read various takes. The spread of mis- and disinformation is a frequent complaint about social media. Often, “The Algorithm” is blamed, rather than human nature. The role of influencers and traditional media tends to be ignored.
The original news was posted twice. Right now these posts have a score of 80 and 456 upvotes.
Being active on Lemmy has pretty much convinced me that claims about some evil algorithm being responsible for all the ills of social media are baseless.
https://lemmy.world/post/31866458
https://lemmy.world/post/31865309
I mean, its a news article posted to a news forum. And if we look at the comments the parent comments for the top 7 threads are:
-unrelated anecdote -praose for the idea behind the festival -something removed (probably some random racist shit). Notably the child comments seem to call out the original sentiment. -a request for more info -tangential conversation about what defines a “major incident”
I don’t know if your issue is with the content or the reactions but I don’t see how either points to the issues with social media. It’s a bit sensationalist and some of the comments arent exactly thought provokers, but there’s nothing (that I can see) that screams “social media bad”
Being active on Lemmy, not this one incidence in particular. This is one example showing that the spread of misinformation does not require any sinister force pulling strings.
I have an interest in internet regulation and so read various takes. The spread of mis- and disinformation is a frequent complaint about social media. Often, “The Algorithm” is blamed, rather than human nature. The role of influencers and traditional media tends to be ignored.