Social media websites have been controlling Internet traffic since the early 2000's but none more than Facebook and Twitter. With its "1.59 billion members" to Twitter's "307 million" (Statista) Facebook has taken the world by storm in both recreational and business formats, with 1.038 billion daily users there is clearly a dependence on the material being posted. However, a seldom-asked question by the users who do not understand the dangers of using social media is; who checks what we read online? The loss of journalistic integrity, the necessity for instantaneous news, and societal norms of having a social media account have led users to believe that the posts they see online can be trusted and shared. Social media posts are not held to any standard. Use of these posts as a news source without proper verification destroys the integrity and reliability that large news outlets are supposed to have. 

The idea behind social media is that you can be connected to millions of daily users behind a screen, rather than a face-to-face conversation. The first issue with using social media as a news source is the loss of journalistic integrity in today's modern news outlets. Most people understand the risk of checking social media and assuming that what is posted is news, but when large news outlets report using the posts as facts, it makes people more susceptible to misconstruing the post's meaning and the accuracy of the post. Journalistic integrity and accountability seem to no longer be cornerstones of news outlet's morals. After ABC ran a slanderous campaign against Beef Products Inc. the company had to be suspended and there were massive loss of jobs across the United States. This was caused not because of FDA infractions or endangerment of their customers, it was because Jim Avila, the ABC correspondent who reported on the company, coined the term "pink slime" to describe the meat product that was being produced. BPI used the same practices for over a decade but because ABC decided to so heavily report with the "pink slime" campaign it jeopardized BPI. "ABC reporter Jim Avila, in hot pursuit of a journalism award, wrote a series of reports claiming that BPI was producing "pink slime" with the network hyping the term by using it 52 times in a two-week period in March Any reporter investigating BPI would have swiftly found a mountain of evidence exonerating the company from any hint of the allegations made against it" (Caruna). This story peaked the interests of ABC's viewers so they falsely accused the company of using unsound meat preparation practices. This won Avila and ABC an award and gave a slight boost in ratings. However with further investigation into the story BPI was not at fault, nevertheless the damage was already done. Clearly this way of reporting is unethical and lacks the morals that should be required by all major news outlets. Journalistic integrity has taken a back seat to higher ratings and the monetary value that is brought in by viewers. With reports like BPI showing that news sources can be inaccurate how could they possibly be trusted if the source they are using comes from a random social media user instead of a field reporter. The only determination of the validity of a news report is its sources. If the sources cannot hold up then there should be no report. "I would suggest there are three main lessons people can learn from journalists: firstly, you're only ever as good as your sources. Secondly, even the material from your best sources should be scrutinized, particularly if it's contradictory to what others are saying ... " (Roberts). The sources of a news article have to be sound or there is no way to determine whether or not the report can be trusted. Social media's format of anything can be posted by anyone, although fair, does not give it the qualifications to be a reliable news source.

The necessity for quick information mixed with the volatility of the information being presented is a dangerous combination that social media portrays. The reason journalistic integrity is so important is because in today's society there is such a reliance on speed when it comes to receiving information. Because of the speed of the spread of information in the social media format, unverified or inaccurate information could cause a cataclysmic problem. Fear based situations or when people are put into positions that necessitate immediate news makes social media seem like a trustworthy outlet to turn to, however the possible inaccuracy of posts during these times causes a rift between people seeing what they want to see instead of them being left in the dark until the information can be verified. Today people want instant gratification on all issues throughout the world, especially if it could directly or negatively affect them. In the wake of the Boston bombings, a muslim student of Brown University, Sunil Tripathi, had been reported missing earlier that day which caused him to be accused of partaking in the attacks via social media posts. Tripathi had no relation in any way to the bombings, but that didn't stop his name and picture from being posted all over social media sites like Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. These posts then spread to larger news outlets, which led to a police-backed manhunt until his name was eventually cleared. Attacks like this have brought an era of news that puts a significant amount of reliance on first hand accounts from social media. The posts that are used from these accounts are rarely checked for accuracy and create disconnect of truth between the viewer and the reporter. "Reporters have only to sit behind their desks and log on to Facebook and Twitter to see what comments are being made on a particular topic and incorporate those quotes into their reports. This has been particularly evident on television news recently, with comments from social media being incorporated into reports..." (Burrows). Crises are times when people turn to social media for news the most. Anything scary or dangerous implants a need to know more about a situation and its implications into a viewer's minds. During the Naval Yard shootings in 2013 there were many reports based on social media posts that got their information from police scanners. These reports were then proven to be inaccurate due to the fact that police scanner chatter is usually conjecture rather than fact. However, in the moment, CNN and NBC decided to immediately start reporting once they received the posts. "Initial reports said that as many as three gunmen were involved. Then two. Then one. Then back to three. That four people were dead. But maybe six were. By midday, CNN had settled for "multiple." NBC and CBS identified a suspect by name. Except, as it turned out, he wasn't a suspect. Others reported that police were responding to a second shooting at Bolling Air Force Base. But then they weren't  --  there was no shooting there" (Farhi). This Washington Post article clearly expresses how in the wake of an event of high safety concern and time sensitivity it is very important to fact check the social media posts being reported on and make sure that they can provide sound information for an accurate news report. Reporting using social media has brought forth lazy journalism where instead of being on the frontlines with a camera and a microphone, all the reporter has to do is watch their Twitter feed until someone eventually sends a usable post. The issue with lazy journalism is that there is no viable way to fact check social media posts. A news report is rendered useless if it is without a factual source.

Societal norms play a large role in social media being used as a news source. Social media is available through many different mediums both stationary and mobile so there is almost always a way to check the feeds. The issue comes when people blindly spread what they're viewing on social media. The flawed belief that the posts are facts simply because they're on the Internet is what causes the diffusion of inaccurate information so quickly. One user sharing unverified information could easily cause a chain reaction between all of the viewers of that user's account. Now it is commonplace for adults to share information on social media. "As of January 2014, 74% of online adults use social networking sites" (Pew). There is a constantly growing number of adults who use social media which means there is a continuously growing stream of information that flows through these sites. That stream of information is revolutionary and has never been seen before however it is also very dangerous. "It's often the case online that a piece of content is real, but the person who has shared it isn't the original creator. Or, alternatively, a trustworthy source may have fallen for a hoax. Good people share bad things; and good content can come from surprising places" (WAN). Some of these cases happen when common people are just trying to spread helpful information in the fastest way possible in order to assist other users. The issue comes when the shared information is not verified and thus, although there is no malicious intent, it puts the viewers of the account in harm's way and possibly at fault if they also decide to share the unverified post. The societal norm of having a social media account allows millions of people to be connected on a single website, which can easily cause the dispersion of false information. For social media to become a viable news source, users need to verify what they share with the world before they send out their posts.

Although freedom of speech allows anyone to post whatever he or she pleases on a social media site, which can cause a disconnect between true and false posts, it is impossible to ignore the upsides of the incline of this form of reporting. The instantaneous ability to acquire potential news from a variety of sources is the main factor that makes social media a useful news entity. "Over 50% of people learn about breaking news on social media" (procon). Social media easily allows people around the world to connect to each other through a simple medium. The spread of information is inevitable when dealing with social media, which allows there to be different aspects and perspectives on certain situations. Eyewitness reports can now be submitted online and read by millions of people within minutes of being posted then be reported on by large media conglomerates which spreads information even faster and to an even broader audience. The combination of social media and large news outlets reporting on certain topics possess the power to control demographics across the board. Large news outlets like Fox News and CNN have a median age of 48.8 and hit a demographic that applies more towards "35-54 and 55+" (quora) demographics. Whereas social media not only targets the 18-34 demographic it can even go below 18 years old because of the rising popularity of social media in middle and high school ages. These posts can be broadcasted using these two different outlets to any age demographic almost instantly from when the event takes place. The news outlets never have to be on the run and ready for breaking events. They simply need social media users to send in their information, videos, or any information possibly relating to the event and choose the ones that they report on. Using social media as a news source has allowed large broadcasting sources the ability to apply any social media postings to all demographics. The spread and possible creation of a new demographic due to social media is what allows the dispersion of these posts and the information they contain to a large population. These posts have the ability to reach every age demographic through multiple outlets and the speed that this can be done is unparalleled when compared to any other time period. News sources have never been able to disperse information in this amount of time. According to the Reuters Institute at Oxford in America "74% of news comes from social media compared to 64% coming from television and large news outlets." This shift in reliance on news outlets is due to the fact that social media is the fastest new outlet ever and there are constant updates to stories and different viewpoints that allow the flow of ideas and progress of opinions. Social media sites allow people to voice an opinion that can be completely unique from anyone else's and reach a larger audience than ever before. Television news reports have a specific bias that is heard by the viewers and then reproduced to other people who are also listening to the same bias reports. This allows the viewers of both the posts and reports to form a larger combined opinion. Social media is designed to deliberately take out the middleman and only leave the story. The issue that needs to be taken into account from a viewer/user's standpoint is whether or not the source of the news is reliable. It is difficult for the user to understand a topic that they have had no prior experience with. Sometimes users will not completely understand the post placed in front of them. So they may only understand one part of the post which is trustworthy but another part could be unverified without them knowing. Finding ways for users to completely understand and check the posts they're sharing is the only way to use social media to Its full potential and for it to be a truly reliable news source.

The reliance on social media as a news outlet is dangerous because there are a growing number of cases that prove that the posts can be unreliable. When these posts are used as sources for news reports without being verified it takes away the credibility that the report and the station normally have. The spread of false information in this way is so dangerous because large news outlets have been trusted throughout their history to bring accurate reports to their viewers while social media has never been relied on to be reliable. The issue lies with the inability to understand what is factual and what needs to be checked. If the average social media user could understand that there is no integrity of inherent reliability behind any of the posts they share social media could potentially be a valid news source. These practices however have yet to be adopted because of the commonality of the social media account. So many people use them that when a post is seen there is an assumption that, because of  the familiarity of the post, it is trustworthy. The understanding that social media posts cannot be trusted without being verified both on personal accounts and large news sources is the only way that social media can truly be a reliable news source.

