During Hurricane Sandy struck New York City and neighboring areas the wildest rumors, disinformation was spread in social media such as Twitter. Often photos were shared with others which were actually taken earlier or at another location. Sometimes photos depicting the wildest 'evidence' of sharks in New York's submerged streets subway showed up or divers have supposedly inspected New York's subway system. Those fakes were produced by Photoshop and other editing software and have no doubt misled users of those social networks. Besides 'ordinary citizens' also some journalists have been fooled which resulted sometimes in completely bogus reporting: One such example was the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) which some otherwise respected financial media have described also to be submerged by X feet of water and the resulting 'closure' before the resumption of regular operations has indeed stirred some unrest in the international stock market. This isn't funny anymore when people lose their savings or the economy is damaged by people who are just a bit too eager to report 'big news'
Here are some articles giving guidance about the 'dos and don'ts' of reporting.
CNN, Weather Channel Falsely Report NYSE Flooding During Hurricane Sandy
(Huffington Post Oct 29th 2012)
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