Untitled

For this assignment, I used a website called Buzzsumo. This is a website that is used to find different viral stories that are going on around the world. But some of these stories can not be all true. I scrolled to try and find a story that is a topic within the last couple of days. I set the filters to stories from the last 24hrs and stories from the US.

After I scrolled for a little, I spotted this story: Hurricane Milton: Peach Pass adjusting lanes to help move evacuees faster. In the next day, Florida is getting hit with a category 5 hurricane. The story had an engagement score of 22.3K. After hearing so much about this hurricane, I wanted to know if this was real.

After I clicked on the Buzzsumo link, it led me to a WSB-TV 2 Atlanta news article by news staff. https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/hurricane-milton-peach-pass-adjusting-lanes-help-move-evacuees-faster/EICITJDA7RAIVNSZXTFNBLZNSM/

Before I read the article, I did a quick assessment of WSB-TV news.

A media bias checker showed that Web-TV News has a least biased viewpoint, high rating for factual reporting, and is a proper source due to credible media sources. This leads me to think this story is real but want to look into it a little more.

Next, I looked on Facebook and X to see if people were reposting this story since the engagement level was high. A couple people commented about this on Facebook. On X, PeachPassGA posted about how there are adjustments to the lanes on I-75 South Metro Express Pass due to people trying to leave Florida due to the hurricane. People were also reposting a article by the local radio channel. I then looked on Google " Peach Pass adjusting lanes for Hurricane Milton".

While I was scrolling on X, I came across a post from Brian Krassenstein. He posted a picture of people storming the capital with a description of how Trump said that "every poll is rigged"- unless, of course, they are winning. He also talks about how Trump thinks if they lose the election, it's because of voter fraud. But not in the States they win. After reading his post, I thought what credentials this user, Brian Krassenstein, has. After this, I thought I should "read laterally" and look into him.

First I looked into his page and noticed that most of the content is about the election and things Trump has said and the debates that have occured.

Each post was about politics and reposting what they said during the debates. This led me to question his credibility as he is posting all of these things. I thought, is he just a guy who is posting his opinion, or does he have the credentials to post about the news?

Next, I scrolled up to his bio on X. His bio contains phrases like "AI, Technology", "Crypto", "Web3", and "Political commentary". With those captions, he doesn't seem to be totally reliable. Additionally, Krassenstein states that this page is his "political commentary" although in some posts he posts the main video. Most of the descriptions are personal opinions, but some are factual. The bio doesn't include him having a degree, so because of this, he is focused on his own opinions. Next, I searched for Brian Krassenstein on Google. I first scrolled down and opened his Influence watch. In the little description part, it states he is "an American left-of-center political-commentary entrepreneur". It also states about his background, federal raid, his twitter, and children's book.

This makes it clearer that he is not an expert on politics and just posts about his opinions. He and his brother wrote a book about Trump also. By digging further, I noticed he has a LinkedIn account. This shows that he went to Rutgers and he is the Co-founder and CFO of InterSocial. It does not state if he has a degree.

While I was scrolling on Reddit, I came across this photo. I was confused about what was going on in the photo. I then looked at the caption and read that Horseshoe Crabs are captured and released after having their blue blood harvested. When first looking at this photo, I did not know that was a thing. I found this photo extreme and wondered how they could do that to them. After seeing this photo I wanted to verify the image by going upstream.

To validate this information in the photo, I had to find its original source. In the post, there is no source provided. For example, there is no link in the comments or in the caption. The caption although tells what the photo is about. According to the caption, the crabs are captured for their blue blood because they use it for the pharmaceutical sector. At first, that sounded crazy.

This username posts a lot of facts and videos that all seem to be real. I still wanted to make sure this post was real. So I continued my path on going upstream.

The first step I took was typing "Are blue crabs captured after having their blue blood harvested" into Google. After searching that, google pulled up with a lot of websites. The first one was the Reddit page, but then I scrolled down and looked at a website that I thought was reliable. I noticed that the one result was NPR and opened that source. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/10/1180761446/coastal-biomedical-labs-are-bleeding-more-horseshoe-crabs-with-little-accountabi

After clicking the link, I was brought to the National Public Radio website. I then read that it is real and it dates back to the 1960s. I then looked at another website to verify. I found an article from the PBS news and knew from there that this photo was real. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/blue-blood-from-horseshoe-crabs-is-needed-for-medicine-but-a-declining-bird-species-relies-on-the-crabs-to-eat

That article says that this is done in South Carolina in a laboratory facility.

While I was scrolling through Tik Tok I found this video about new things found about the Titanic. The video shows how due to deterioration the railing fell off. It also shows how they found a statue at the bottom which is thought to be lost from the ship.

Now that you have seen the video and saw what they found, I did not think it was real at first. I did not think they would find anything else since they last looked due to deterioration.

The fact-checking method I used was looking for previous work. After watching the video I checked Google for " statue found from Titanic." After I searched for this, I looked for a little bit I found a trustworthy news article confirming that they actually did find a statue and railing from the Titanic.