When the murder of Diamoney Greene started to appear on social media sites, Yik Yak was set ablaze with all kinds of misinformation. Unverified, half-truthful reports mounted to new and dangerous heights. A murder-suicide that took place days before it was discovered was talked about as if it was an immediate threat to the student population.
This is what happens what happens when the rumor mill doesn't have all the facts yet — it distorts, it mystifies and it doesn't leave anyone more informed afterwards.
Don't get us wrong, this kind of hyper-fast communication which Yik Yak promotes can be funny. It can start the types of rumors that gather a whole swarth of people down to the South Caroliniana Library on the Horseshoe to see Bill Nye.
But both cases — one serious, one not — boil down to a simple message: Yik Yak and fast-moving Twitter "reporting" accounts do not necessarily transmit reliable information.
If you don’t know who is behind a post or Yak, you can’t be sure of the intent behind or quality of the information you’re given. If you want to be sure, you go to your reliable news sources.
We're sure most people understand this to some extent.
But if that’s the case, why did so many people show up to get a handshake from their favorite childhood Science Guy? Why do so many people, caught in the excitement of a vague, threatening news story, give these wildest kind of rumors a second look?
It’s a question concerning degrees of certainty. No one — if anyone — places full confidence in the hearsay that’s put on Yik Yak, but the sheer volume of contradicting information leaves any potential topic open to doubt. The number of people upvoting one version of a story (which sometimes reaches into the hundreds) might give it a misleading impression of truth.
We’re not trying to criticize social media. These apps and websites serve their original purposes as spaces which foster communication, anonymous or otherwise. Twitter is easy to use and if you’re a reputable journalistic organization trying to get the real news out there, it's great ways of letting people know the facts almost as soon as you do.
But, as far as nailing down the details, you’d have a hard time confirming anything that you find in the Yik-Yak tide-rush of different bits of half-truths, sex jokes and outright lies.
When it comes to what you need to know, it's worth it to look to the people who are paid to ensure that every word you get is factual. Look to the news.