Social media users don't realize their power

Bkuesky offered an instructive example today about how misinformation spreads online. All names have been redacted below and details simplified for the sake of they don’t matter to my point.

On Friday, The Houston Chronicle published a story about a bunch of semi-trucks causing a major traffic jam near a warehouse operated by an Amazon sub-contractor. A town of 15,000 declared a state of emergency to shut down the warehouse and traffic. The Chronicle headline is not at fault but maybe did contribute to the later misunderstandings:

A glitch sent 1,000 Amazon trucks into an Humble neighborhood. Now there's a disaster declaration

“Glitch” possibly implies a technological issue, and “Amazon trucks” lead the mind to think of autonomous vehicles, perhaps. A Bluesky user with 6,000 followers posted the link at 7:04 ET Saturday:

“Amazon sent 1,000 self-driving delivery trucks to a town near Houston and can't figure out how to make them leave.” (Emphasis mine.)

A few replies quickly came in saying “those are not self-driving” and at 9:10 a.m. ET, the OP replied with:

“UPDATE: These may not be self-driving but still dispatched incorrectly and stuck in Humble, Texas, interfering with traffic and emergency vehicles.”

Which, is nice but not helpful as no one reads the replies before retweeting something. And so by 10:30 a.m. ET the original incorrect post had 11 replies, half of which were pointing out the error, the other half were memes about runaway AI.

More the problem, the original error was reposted by 55 accounts, some of whom I would classify as very "media literate," and in aggregate with a following of more than 200,000 people.

Happily, the OP deleted the mistake shortly before 11 a.m. ET. And the topic is benign enough, no harm done more or less.

But, I have been hypothesizing that a lot of the misinformation problem on social media (as opposed to organized disinformation campaigns) is just people not understanding they have unlimited global reach, and that with great power comes great responsibility.

And maybe what bothers me about “media literacy” is the discussions are often framed as a skill journalism demands of consumers - assuming smarter readers are what's needed.

But what we need first are smarter producers - everyone on social media - because a lot of mistakes are the result of “random” accounts posting “fake” news for the lulz, as satire, as an inside joke with friends, or because they are politically motivated to lash out. But most people don’t believe anyone will see or care what they have to say. Until the RTs start to pile up.

Epliogue: In this case, after deletion, the OP has been going to people who did repost and apologizing and correcting the record. Most social media users won't take that time or responsibility, but it is the ethical approach.