Every week, we provide interesting links from around the web that discuss issues regarding the verification processes of content from social media. Here is our list for this week.

 

 

UGC can get toxic

Journalists are more and more confronted with brutal images and videos. Picture desks have always filtered out images and videos that are not fit for public consumption. There is no such filter for UGC that resides in Social Networks, there for all to see. If used in the news provision process, these images and videos will need detailed analysis in order to verify them for use in publications.

“Trauma is a violation of the social contract,” says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of Colombia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. He explains: “The images we see from Gaza aren’t supposed to happen. …it’s not supposed to happen and it violates our sense of what is right”.

A recent online survey of Journalism.co.uk shows to what extent journalists were affected by viewing graphic and disturbing UGC. Out of 62 journalists, 47 said they felt affected in some ways. Have a look at the details here. And do not miss the comments at the end!

 Source: Journalism.co.uk

 

Islamic States’ rapid growth partly due to United States, some claim

It is well known that the group that calls itself Islamic State (IS) is highly active on social networks to ‘market’ their jihadist message across the world. A France 24 Observers team has debunked some conspiracy theories that claim that the US is behind the rapid rise of the IS group.

Source: France 24 – The Observers

 

Ethical and legal challenges with UGC

Users who create digital content are becoming increasingly aware of legal implications as well as respective rights issues. The news industry uses UGC more and more. This shows the urgent need for the news industry to address all pending legal issues concerning UGC. What are the rights of the people creating this content? What about ethical issues? Should ethics be considered before the law?

Fergus Bell, AP’s Social Media UGC editor, shares his experience on ethical and legal conundrums in the digital age.

Source: WAN-IFRA blog

 

If you fake it, do it well!

Zilla van den Born, a Dutch graphic design student, tricked her family and friends into believing that she was on an exotic South-East Asia trip whilst actually being at home in Amsterdam. She did so by manipulating social media streams galore. According to Zilla, who did this as part of a student project, all this was rather hard work and had little to do with holidays. It turned out to be a very exciting experiment on the power of manipulated content shared via social media.

Source: PetaPixel