Let’s take these Flappy Bird
rumors one-by-one.
This
was obviously too surreal to be real. The story originated from the website
Huzlers.com, “a combination of real shocking news
and satire news to keep its visitors in a state of disbelief,” The response on Twitter was
immediate and emotional. The hint should have been in the numbers – the victim
was 17 years old, the high score creating the fight was 17 and the death was caused
by 17 stab wounds. The story was well developed
with a quote from the “office or scene” and a mugshot of the alleged killer,
which was really just lifted from the 2009 Manatee County, Florida burglary
report. This story is still up and
un-proven as a hoax through many online blogs and websites.
On
Sunday Feburary 8, 2014 Flappy Birds creator Dong Nguyen announced he would be
taking down his app for purchase. On Monday February 10, 2014 social media was full
of news of the creators suicide. This story probably arose from the vagueness on why the creator was taking down the App for purchase through Twitter. Again, a story produced by Huzlers.com, had
filled our Twitter “news feeds” full of false news.
Though
this one originally had some truth to it –the situation has changed. According to C
Net EBAY is starting to take down the postings of cell phones with Flappy
Bird installed. EBay has rules against selling copyrightable materials without
the permission from of the creator. I don’t think creator Dong Nguyen will be
giving this permission to anyone who downloaded his free app based on the
roller coaster of a week he’s had of receiving death
threats from his apps’ “biggest fans”. Maybe try selling them on Craigslist
or Amazon before they catch on, too.
I wanted to blog about this to bring up the subject of
checking your sources when you hear a new story. Any of these stories, with a
quick Google search can be proven as hoaxes, I’m now waiting for the “Flappy
Bird App Removal was Strategy of Cell Phone Companies to Increase Sales of New
Phones.”
When I first heard about these rumors, my mind was blown. I was actually quite frustrated when I initially heard about all of this nonsense. People just love to make news and gain attention, regardless of whether is it true or not. It is almost sickening how frequently you hear stories that are completely wrong. All it does is create a dilemma for whomever the story is surrounding.
ReplyDeleteAlthough with this, too many people just trust anything that is posted on the internet. I can think of numerous stories where they were completely false but people soaked it up like a sponge and the word spread mighty fast. DO NOT TRUST EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET! People lie, people are misled, people, sometimes, just have no idea what they are talking about. Always check the source, but more than anything, use your head. If it seems quite outlandish, it probably is. If you think that it might be true, do your research. Flappy Bird is just one of the thousands of examples that exposes our lack of desire to discover the truth and would rather just be entertained.
I agree, people are way too trusting of things they read on the internet. A short while ago, my cousin posted a link on Facebook to an article he read on The Onion, thinking it was a true story and not realizing that The Onion is a satire news site. A site like Huzlers seems like a bad thing because they post real news and satire news, which can mislead anyone because how are you supposed to tell what's real and what's not?
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy what people post on the internet. I enjoyed reading about the hoaxes and how there really was not any truth to any of them yet they still were believed by so many people. But, I was surprised that people would actually buy a phone on ebay just because it has flappy bird installed on it. Even though flappy bird is down, there is already several new games that are literally the same this as flappy bird, just lacking the bird.
ReplyDelete@Garret/Jesse: You really just have to be your own fact checker when consuming media over the internet. Anyone can post anything on the internet and I don't think it's a bad thing to have these fake news sites -- they are entertaining. If someone takes it for truth, it's their own fault and really they are just discrediting themselves. The thing that shocks me that are a lot of smaller media sites or blogs that picked up the story early on haven't made corrections to say it's turned out false. That's what worries me. They don't want to discredit themselves so they don't point out the mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe ability for these stories to spread on social media the way they did really just proves Dong Nguyen point that making something that becomes successful in this day and age can really tear you down, destroy your career, and discredit you.
@Joe: it's all about out consumer behavior. WE HAVE TO HAVE IT once we can't have it. And the original, not a knock off.