Ted Barris

Hands up, if you believed the statement that President Barack Obama is a radical Muslim who would not recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. Or more recently, and closer to home, the story that began circulating last Thursday, that Canadian folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot is dead. When the legendary singer-songwriter heard about his so-called demise he contacted the Toronto media outlet CP24.

“I haven’t gotten that much airplay of my songs in weeks,” he told them.

The point is that these two stories began out there in cyberspace. They were all initiated in the unedited, unbridled, often unscrupulous universe known as Web 2.0 and are euphemistically referred to as “social media.”

Some anti-Obama campaigners got carried away during the U.S. election campaign and made the “radical Muslim” allegation on an Internet site. And it’s alleged that Gordon Lightfoot’s death notice began as a prank on Twitter. The point is that every one of those rumours is false.

In my view, giving these private social-media networks – whether Facebook, My Space or Twitter – any more credibility than just leisure playthings of people craving to be noticed is laughable and probably dangerous. They are quite simply sophisticated electronic toys. They come and go like fads. But like fads, when they gather large followings, they appear to gain credibility – without truly earning it.

Yes, there were stunning revelations initiated by those Twittering from inside the anti-government demonstrations in Iran last year. And it’s likely that some of those trapped inside collapsed buildings or marooned in the countryside during the Haitian earthquake, last month, notified rescuers where they were via social media. That doesn’t make those devices any more valuable than walkie-talkies or ham radio a generation ago, much less leaders of credible reporting.

I happen to object to social media being believed just by being there. It would be like saying that simply buying a printing press in the Gutenberg era or erecting a transmitter in the Golden Age of Radio or buying a licence for a TV station in the early 1950s automatically gave me the right to publish editorials, broadcast the news or telecast current affairs.

The tools of social media are only as fair and honest as the people who operate them. Or more practically, they are only as credible as the forces that filter them. But we all know that the unregulated nature of the Internet only rarely permits such things as editing, fact-checking, cross-examination or objectivity. That would cramp its style.

But I happen to think that social media’s freedom is also its downfall. Its freedom has begat bias, reckless commentary and idle rumour. That’s not to say rumours can’t be amusing. I mean, how about the rumour in the fall of 1969 that Paul McCartney was dead? The account was first printed in an Illinois newspaper, the Northern Star. Before long that conjecture became fodder for every student newspaper and rock ‘n’ roll station in North America. Published stories described a fatal car accident outside London in 1966, when a McCartney double had secretly taken the bass player’s place.

Then, conspiracy theorists concocted a shopping list of clues hidden in their recordings: When the song “Revolution Number 9” is played backwards the lyrics say “Turn me on, dead man.” At the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” John Lennon’s voice says, “I buried Paul.” And on the inside cover of the “Sergeant Pepper” album, Paul’s wearing a black arm patch with the letters “OPD,” which some said stood for “Officially Pronounced Dead.” (We in Ontario know that the patch came from an Ontario Provincial Police shoulder patch.)

More recently, a blogger named Ethan Zuckerman explored another Internet hoax. About a month ago, people across the African nation of Ghana began receiving text messages (ironically, some African nations have more cell phones than fresh water taps). The texting allegedly quoted NASA in the U.S. and the BBC news.

“Today’s night 12:30 to 3:30 a.m., cosmic rays entering earth from Mars,” the text message said.

The text went on to predict that in the aftershocks in Haiti, an equally powerful earthquake would occur in Ghana. By dawn that same day, the messages had grown more specific about the impending quake. Thousands – some said millions – of people had fled into the streets. And while Ghana’s propaganda secretary blamed a rival political party, the entire scam turned out to be a Twitter prank. Another example of social media run amuck.

So, I’m here to tell you that both Gordon and Paul are still alive. The quake in Haiti, not Ghana, was real. And my “social media” are the reporters I read in the traditional newspapers, magazines, as well as Lloyd and Peter and the late night news.