Citation Laundering: How Social Media Changed Journalism

 If we were to discuss how journalism has changed with the introduction of social media, we would be here all day and we would barely scratch the surface. However, I would like to focus on one particular aspect of web journalism: citation laundering.

Most of us were taught to "include citations", "check the sources" and "don't cite Wikipedia". However, as a result all that most of us do when we read an article online is check if it has its sources stated below and we are completely content with that. Bloggers, knowing that, will sometimes link sources that are completely unrelated to the topic or even contradictory to what their own article is saying.

The problem has gotten even worse in recent years, especially in the right-wing cyberspaces (although no one is blameless). Someone would post a tweet with an outlandish claim, people will retweet it, someone will report on that in a YouTube video while fabricating some extra evidence to solidify their point, then Tucker "Resting Confused Face" Carlson from Fox News will report on that (not claiming, but "questioning" if it's true). And now the people who want to buy into the initial claim have a "real source" they can cite, and it is no longer possible to find out where the lie started.


Yesterday I read an article (not on Fox News) claiming that the F-35 that failed to land on a carrier near China and fell into the sea, was piloted by "the first ever female F-35 pilot on her first ever flight". Many social media forums reposted screenshots of the article on their feeds. And the article had citations and everything. However, having looked into the story, I found out that the first female F-35 pilot is Christine Mau and she retired in 2017. Would not have guessed that from all the citations.

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