How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweet

On Sunday night, President Donald Trump retweeted a video of a violent incident on a New York City subway platform. The video shows a Black man pushing a white woman into a train car and is captioned “Black Lives Matter / Antifa.” The problem? It is over a year old and has nothing to do with either Black Lives Matter or Antifa. It, in fact, shows the actions of a mentally ill man with no known ties to either group.

Carolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Refusing to Delete Trump’s Tweets Accusing Joe Scarborough of Murdering Lori Klausutis

Fascinating use of social media. To be clear, this story about “Carolyn Gombell” is a fabrication, intended to spark Twitter to take action against people (such as Donald Trump) who use Twitter to publicize unfounded accusations. Will that matter to people who share it? It’s parody accounts, not journalists, who are retweeting this story as…

Former student: “I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, but…”

A third alum in the last few weeks has contacted me to thank me for challenging her while a student: When I look back on my time at SHU, I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, but yet again, this is proof that the skills you taught us so a few years ago…