Skip to main content

Debunking smears on the Internet

In the age of 24 hour Blogging and Social Media, debunking a smear can be proven to be a near impossible task. You can address or "put the record strait", however you cannot make the smear disappear.When you make it an issue, it becomes an issue.

Back in June of 2008, Barack Obama, launched http://www.fightthesmears.com/ a website to report, explain and debunk smears concerning Obama. At the time I wrote: It is a move that has got mainstream media publicity and a great tool to defend against Internet rumors becoming campaign issues.

Lately, I came across http://www.icorrect.com/ which is something like http://www.fightthesmears.com/ for celebrities and people in the public domain. However,  Smears exist not because the truth is not available!

You can watch a very interesting interview of the founder of http://www.icorrect.com/ on the Colbert Report here:


This time around, and with the 2012 campaign coming up, it is still very difficult to once and for all make every rumor stop; or even stop people believing and being receptive in smear messages.

On the CNN politics website, there is a very interesting video that breaks down the facts and the myths behind the "Birthers" claims and shows why Obama was indeed born in America.



These rumours came to the attention of the public again since a possible 2012 contender, Donald Trump had recently talked to CNN's Suzanne Malveaux about the issue.



Maybe the only way to debunk a smear is to tackle it the way Jon Stewart does!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iranian elections, so what?

There has been so much press coverage on the fallout after the Iranian elections, and most of it coming from social media sources, YouTube, twitter, facebook, Blogs etc. What I don't understand is that: Did people in Iran just woke up to their reality? They are living in a totalitarian state, under the dictatorship of a religious figure (Ali Khamenei), citizens are afraid to talk openly, and always need to be anonymous in case someone from the state comes knocking at their door. So, did some people in Iran just woke up? Why did they have to wait for an election to protest and express their concerns? If the system is corrupt and biased towards the population now, then it must have been like this before the elections! I did also manage to watch some of the press conferences by the Iranian State representative, but I have not seen anything from the Mousavi campaign. Why doesn't the Mousavi campaign have a daily press briefing? Why doesn't Mousavi go on an Interview with a ...
1 comment
Read more

John Kerry and Digital Diplomacy

John Kerry delivered his first remarks as the new U.S. Secretary of State. In his first speech at the State Department, he noted :  "...We get to talk about empowering people through our ideals, and through those ideals hopefully they can change their lives..." This is really important to underline;  given that public diplomacy now has a much more crucial role to play. In utilising new and social media, people now have the opportunity to engage through digital diplomacy.  As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine has said :  "...we have to introduce more and more virtual exchanges and the use of social media particularly to reach young people where they are..." Secretary Kerry Tours the Ops Center Also, I came across a tweet from the State Department which informed that #SecKerry will be tweeting from the  +U.S. Department of State  twitter account . #SecKerry will start tweeting fr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Twitter mistakes in Political Communications

A recent tweet from President Obama... stated : President Obama urges Congress to pass the infrastructure section of the American Jobs Act now. Listen live: http://wh.gov/live I have seen this in many tweets from politicians that have communications staffers operate their Social Media presence. This tweet is absolutely wrong! Barack Obama says: "President Obama urges Congress..." instead of writing "I urge Congress..." the copywriter wrote a tweet as if he/she is writing on their personal account. Clearly a big Social Media mistake.. P.S. IAB!
2 comments
Read more