Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Reporter mistaken for psycho killer on Facebook

Oh, the internets.

This episode of epic fail is brought to us by a local "link farm" outlet, the Facebook page of Staten Island, New York.

The page, which is "not associated with, sponsored or authorized by, any County Government," has more than 11,000 likes and regularly posts random links about local news.

They are also heavily skewed to the right, sharing 'news' about: Sarah Palin, 'Obamacare,' and insightful nuggets about November's local Congressional race, like this one:
Election 2010: "Last week, the campaign for one-term incumbent Rep. Michael McMahon crossed that line from rough-and-tumble campaign tactics to bald-faced deceit."
Way to be non-partisan.

But the site really fucked up on Sunday, when the anonymous farm put up this story about Eric Belluci, the guy who (allegedly) killed his family and fled to Israel.


Notice anything wrong here? The photo attached to the news article is not psycho killer Eric Bellucci, it's Advance reporter and sometime DUMP reader Ben Johnson.

The link farm chose the wrong image to go with their daily bait. Predictable hilarity ensues:


All they had to do is go here read the damn story. Once you do, it's clear that the image provided was of the reporter and not the psycho killer. But, remember, these are people who get their news from Facebook. So - thanks to 'Staten Island, New York' - 11,000 FB users think Mr. Johnson murdered his family.

Like this guy:


Pure EVIL!

Moral of the story: don't trust anonymous link farms on Facebook, they are typically run by someone who has both an agenda and an rudimentary grasp of social networking.

Want to read local news and gossip, go to SILive or even the goddamned DUMP for christ sakes. At least we don't confuse our reporters/bloggers with homicidal maniacs (unless, of course, they are).

3 comments:

  1. Ben Johnson will stab you up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi. I actually discovered your blog after trying to find out more info on that Staten Island FB page. This post pretty much confirms my suspicions as to the FB page's government organization issue. I was wondering how it could label itself as such and then endorse a particular candidate. I was then even more curious when it became the new home of a POS blog that had nothing to do with Staten Island. As it turns out, the SI (government organization) page leaves the blogging to an abrasive person in Connecticut. Despite several protests by members over the useless and often nasty posts, it appears the SI page has no intention ousting the bottom of the barrel blog for one for or by a Staten Islander.

    ReplyDelete