🔗 A fake bridge collapse? Nope. – Kevin Drum:
A sign of the times: Last night I saw a post on Twitter that displayed a video of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore collapsing. I did a quick check of a couple of news sites and saw nothing about it, so I assumed it was some kind of AI joke and moved on. Needless to say, I was wrong. It just goes to show that this whole AI deepfake thing cuts both ways.
This initial response of Kevin’s seems like the right one to me.
The bridge collapse in Baltimore is horrible and tragic for the people who were there, and it will undoubtedly have a major impact on the city of Baltimore as they figure out what to do about replacing the bridge. It may even have a wider impact down the road if the resulting closure of the Port Of Baltimore impacts global shipping to a significant degree.
But unless you live in Baltimore, this sort of “breaking news” is entirely a product of a nationalized media environment and a media platforms desperately chasing engagement.
Be skeptical of any “breaking news” you read on the internet. In most cases, there is zero risk of sitting back and waiting before sharing it, commenting on it, or even forming opinion on it.
We need to break this cycle of immediacy we all seem to be stuck in.