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Jobs Rumor Debacle Besmirches Citizen Journalism
On Friday someone posted a false rumor that Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack on CNN's unverified citizen journalism site, iReport. Apple's stock price went vertical, losing 9% before Apple stepped in and denied the rumor; the stock then recovered most of its loss. The SEC is investigating. PCWorld looks at the hit taken by citizen journalism as a result of this incident. "[The] increasingly blurred line between journalism and rumor is a serious concern for Al Tompkins, the broadcast/online group leader at The Poynter Institute — a specialized school for journalists of all media forms. 'How could you possibly allow just anybody to post just anything under your [CNN] label unless you have blazing billboards that say, "None of this has been verified, we've not looked at any of this, we have no idea if this is true"?' he asks."
The stock manipulation possibilities here are pretty big, as is the lawsuit potential.
So this, like the previous wikipedia story basically hinge on the fact that people -- who should really know much better -- are believing stuff they read on the internet from dubious sources. (anything on Wikipedia is likely to be dubious at least to some degree)
You believe stuff you read on the internet, you get burned, quel surprise?
It ain't karma, it's just stupidity. It is admittedly disturbing -- and yet unsurprising considering recent world financial events -- that the stupidity in question in this case involves people who work in the stock market.
Seriously, investors knock 10% off the value of Apple's stock because somebody anonymously posted a rumor on the internet and this is "citizen journalism"'s fault? Bullshit. Is everybody who falls for a 419 scam also a black eye for citizen journalism? By these standards, every time a political campaign inserts a letter to the editor under a false name, the very foundations of the mainstream media are called into question. This is idiocy.
Ok people, I know that those of you who get to write for the real media want this to be important, it isn't, suck it up. Anyway, repeat after me: "Anybody can say anything on the internet, this doesn't make it true."
Guys, this is not new.
Some people on /b/ spent an hour early Friday morning discussing how they could make up a rumor that people were likely to believe, just for the lulz. Eventually, and basically by accident, someone decided that a Steve Jobs rumor would work just fine. He posted a fake but almost plausible story on iReport and digg ("I just saw paramedics take Steve Jobs away, he had a heart attack!") and got hundreds or thousands of /b/ users to Digg it.
I saw this conversation happening live. It's pretty cool that tens of thousands of random anonymous people can change world markets, huh?
The story was obviously fake, and any careful reader of Digg would've immediately noticed the 4chan references in the comments. Naturally there were no careful readers; blogs which have never been very good about checking their sources reported the joke as a real rumor, and small parts of the "real media" started to pick up the story.
The beleaguered stock hit its 52-week low on Friday, although it regained some value after Apple issued an official denial. The SEC has demanded (and received) docs from CNN on the /b/tard who submitted the iReport story.
There's nothing new here, guys. Real media have always known that you need to trust your sources, and if the free market and the "new media" blogs can't figure that out, they're dumber than we give them credit for.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
The Bloomberg/Google slipup a while back also caused large-scale losses, in that instance to United Airlines. Bloomberg actually stated that it does not verify the accuracy of news from other sources. Basically, it trusted Google to do the verification.
This is actually the way it should be. Using automated trading and real-time news to speculate on the stock market should, on average, lose you money. It gives negative inducement to speculation. Investments need to be chosen based on real data, and concrete value. Not based on what you think others will do.
If this is a legitimate case of attempted manpulation, the SEC can do its job. If not, it's a small loss that should have been factored into any risk calculations when the investors decided to trade like this.
Three rights make a left. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.
"Hell? Even 4chan and Slashdot are pretty clear about who owns the comments and the veracity of the comments."
That's why they are my primary news sources.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's up to the actual traders to verify unsubstantiated statements such as this before taking any action.
This is silly, in any case. If Apple is so dependent on the health of one person, they have bigger problems than the antics of a few journalists.
What are they going to do when Jobs finally does pop his clogs? Sooner or later, that is going to happen, and they need to think about that now rather than later.
I think the main takeaway from all this nonsense, aside from stupidity on Wall Street for believing anything and everything, is how frighteningly Apple's fortunes are tightly bound to Steve Jobs specifically.
Bill Gates slowly receded from the limelight at Microsoft, and allowed Ballmer and others to grow into their roles the market's mind. Jobs hasn't really done this yet at Apple. Apple has a few shining lights, but the top of the (Apple) tree is still very clearly The Steve.
{ - Generic Guy - }