I've learned to never trust news stories that come from accounts that are not verified, so I decided to google what this was all about. I found out that although it is being shared now in 2018, this took place about two years ago. I also found out that the guy really did hack a bunch of banks and give the money away. However, after reading articles from Al Jazeera and BBC, one thing that is completely false about the story is that he was executed. In fact, the person to the right is not even Hamza. It is shocking to realize that someone took the time out of their day to create a fake news story, which to many people looks and sounds completely true. The people who create these types of stories or those who write false articles know exactly what they're doing. They try to make it look as real as possible without making it too unbelievable. And because of that, the average person has no reason to doubt the story.
The example above is just one of many that I see all the time on social media. The problem is that the people who are sharing these types of posts genuinely have no clue that the information may be misleading. All of us in this course are obviously in college, and so we've been reminded over and over again on source credibility. Therefore, it is very easy for us to identify illegitimate sources. But we also have to think through the minds of those who may not have been educated on this matter. Those people are not looking at the source at all. They are just interested in the entertaining title of the news story. For many people, there's really no difference between a story that's coming from CNN versus one that's coming from an unheard of website. The rest of us have been taught to explore credible sources when we see articles that come from unverified sources, and that's usually what we do.
The only thing we can really do is try to let people know when something they're sharing is false. But you also don't want to be that person that comments aggressively or tries to argue under the shared post. Instead, if you know the person you could simply explain it to them the next time you see them.
I have not seen this particular post on social media before, but it seems so similar to the kind of misleading storied that are shared all the time. It is actually unbelievable that people share these posts without verifying them or doing any of their own research. I know I always double check sources before sharing anything because I know my reputation is on the line if I share false or misleading stories. When I see that a family member or friend from college shares a post like this I am hesitant to let them know it is misleading or wrong for fear of embarrassing them or something like that, but I do it anyway because it is important. You say that it is shocking for you that people waste time making up these posts, and I would agree. It is so disheartening to face the reality that people want to cause confusion and generate clicks and will do anything they have to do for that.
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