I’ve noticed lately that there’s been a lot of fake articles about people playing Pokemon Go being robbed, killed, and so on. Some of the articles I’ve googled to read more about don’t actually exist and those that do are on questionable websites that don’t provide any evidence. An legit news source, the GQ Magazine investigated most of the Pokemon Go stories that people have been spreading around. Even other sites like The Washington Post, The Telegraph, BuzzFeed News, Gizmodo and Snopes also looked into it. Majority of those stories turned out to be fakes.
I wish people did a bit of research to verify whether or not the news they hear is true, especially on Tumblr. It’s annoying to see so many people spreading fake news around. By the time someone corrects it, it’s too late because too many people that saw it already believed it as true.
Something that’s popular is going to generate a lot of attention. That’s why bad news seems to sell more, in this case, spread faster in the internet. The ones to prosper from it tend to be those questionable websites (especially when they make revenue from ads, so more viewers equals more money for them) and people that use Pokemon Go for malicious attention (like the guy that lied about seeing a murder happen and that he was fired because he was playing Pokemon Go at the time and then set up a Go Fund Me in hopes people were sympathetic to his “situation”).
I don’t find it surprising that some people believed in those fake news articles, but it shouldn’t be made out to be a big deal though. Honesty, it’s the same danger as owning a phone or something electronic and using it in public. Just walking around outside puts you at risks of something bad happening, especially for certain people.
It’s also common sense to avoid bad neighborhoods (especially at night or walk alone), not walk around without looking where you’re going, not using it when driving and to not trespass on someone’s property. Just because Pokemon Go is involved doesn’t mean people are exempt from following the rules or forget what they were taught in school (or at home). They should know better. But there’s always going to be the few out there that are dumb and/or evil, which is what the news (be it the real or fake kind) will focus on.
 DamnBlackHeart · Thu Jul 14, 2016 @ 04:35pm · 0 Comments |
