Last week, Japanese Twittersphere had much debate on the topic how Twitter and social media are weak against disinformation, as a false news site Kyoko-shimbun was criticized by publishing a fake news with a real politician’s name and photo.
The big astronomical event on May 21 morning gave us lots of moving photos, but it was inevitable to get forged images on social media. These are some from Japan/Japanese which really buzzed.
From past
@ryuki_guilty15 tweeted “his friend” took this, retweeted over 30K times.
http://twitpic.com/9nfwq6
which turned out to be the one on National Geographic taken in 2010 Thai.
The same photo buzzed on Reddit, too.
Proposal ring
給料3ヶ月分のレンズで撮影したんだ！ってプロポーズ…だめ？ twitter.com/wacamera/statu…
— わかめ (@wacamera) May 21, 2012
When @wacamera explained how he composed 3 photos, solar eclipse and his right and left hands on iPhone app Blendar one hour later, the photo already circulated on Twitter.
@wacamera May 21, 2012
Someone posted it to TV station as his/her photo then.
情報tenにでちゃったみたいです…… twitter.com/wacamera/statu…
— わかめ (@wacamera) May 21, 2012
Finally, it goes over the language barrier and Twitter official blog introduced it.
NASA’s??? eclipse photo on Facebook
@A4sizeCG posted this illustration on the day before the eclipse, May 20 on Niconico Seiga.
Kevin someone re-posted this illustration on Facebook as “one of the most Spectacular eclipse images ever!”, now shared over 60,000 times with 27,000 likes. This illustration is also being circulated around many websites under non-authors’ names or commented as NASA took it.
This one on Buzzfeed from a Japanese Facebook user is not fake, but this is.
http://twitpic.com/9nxesg
@wacamera is a SHE and not a HE. She also explains that both of the hands are hers.
The explise was taken with SLR camera and the hands with her iphone.
If social media can start people to question sources, that’s a good thing.