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Hot take: the algorithm pushed a fake earthquake warning and I almost bought it
Saw a video going viral last Tuesday claiming a 6.8 quake hit near Sacramento based on a screenshot from an old USGS page. It had 500k views before anyone fact-checked it, and even I shared it to my group chat before realizing the date was from 2019. So is the algorithm just bad at filtering old info, or do we all need to be more skeptical of viral disaster posts?
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jessica9213mo ago
You make a solid point about panic spreading faster than facts, but I think giving the algorithm too much blame lets people off the hook for not taking two seconds to verify. We HAVE to be more skeptical of viral disaster posts because the algorithm is always gonna surface whatever gets clicks, that's just how it works.
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stella223mo ago
Five hundred THOUSAND views before anyone checked the date? That is absolutely WILD to me. It takes like thirty seconds to look up USGS historical data, I cannot believe so many people just shared it without question. The algorithm is definitely part of the problem here, it LOVES to surface anything with high engagement no matter if it's true or from 2019. But honestly we all need to slow way down before hitting share on disaster stuff, especially when it looks like a screenshot instead of a link to a live page. Panic spreads faster than facts every single time, and that's exactly what these fake posts count on.
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