NNN’s Last 10: Battle between fact and fiction sees decade of rapid change

These groups, led by a handful of major online communities with thousands of followers, have served as a vital and important way for people to be informed about what’s going on in their neighbourhoods, but have also struggled to keep misinformation and outright falsehoods from spreading.

It’s forcing local media to be better in not only correcting the record, but also including vital context for such events which draw widespread community attention.

A particularly bad period for this was in 2022 when a pair of incidents resulted in grossly incorrect information spreading quickly on social media.

In March, police arrested a man at Brooks Landing after he failed to stop for security at Save-on-Foods, with officers taking the man, well-known to them, into custody after what was described as “a violent struggle”.

Social media rumours spread stemming from the incident indicating Nanaimo RCMP officers had used deadly force to subdue the suspect, which police at the time called “totally inappropriate” and “an absolute 100 per cent fabrication.”

Then in August, social media again was set alight by a pair of reported incidents involving a murder on board a Duke Point-bound BC Ferries vessel, as well as the presence of an active shooter on the Nanaimo Parkway.

Neither incident happened, and both social media fires appeared to have been started by a single post in each case.

The BC Ferries incident towards the end of the month was actually a missing persons investigation, with the individual found some time later.

Reports of an active shooter on the Parkway over the B.C. Day long weekend were misconstrued after an argument between two individuals resulted in one man shooting the other.

After initially fleeing the scene, officers tracked him down and arrested him about 20 minutes later.

Police said at no point was the public in danger, and comments made were “very troubling.”

A major shift in the information landscape occurred a year later, when the federal government passed the Online News Act, or Bill C-18.

It required social media companies, including Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and Google, to pay Canadian news publishers for their content.

While Google eventually struck a deal, Meta responded by banning Canadian news media links from being shared on the platform, wiping out easy access to verified, factual and contextualized news for many who rely on the social networks to stay informed.

In response, NanaimoNewsNOW shifted its news-sharing strategy to create Everything Nanaimo, and also introduced a daily email service to ensure those seeking local journalism could still easily know what was happening in community.

The void left by news organizations on platforms like Facebook and Instagram has been filled by a rise in social media commenting, but often without the same checks and context newsrooms provide.

Information is moving faster now than a decade ago, and the importance of ensuring people are taking in verified, trusted information is more significant than ever.

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by NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

NNN’s Last 10: Battle between fact and fiction sees decade of rapid change

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