Twitter Becoming Even More of a Cesspool than it was
So-called verified Twitter accounts (there actually are no verified accounts any more, just free and paid accounts) have been reporting that the murderer who killed 18 people in Maine this week has been captured. The police and the FBI say that this is not true; he is still at large.
The suspected shooter, who is a firearms instructor and Army reservist and who made threats to shoot up a National Guard facility reportedly had mental health issues.
Given the level of military training, the fact that he is a marksman and a skilled outdoorsman, the police and FBI have their hands full.
There are concerns that he might repeat what he did earlier in the week and it is likely that the police won’t be able to stop him before he does that.
In addition, police say that there is evidence that he planned this, so he could have prepared to stay hidden for months.
All that being said, the fact that Twitter is allowing these false posts to remain online is a problem.
One of these fake posts (I am assuming these are fake because when the police put multiple cities on lockdown, close schools and businesses and generally scare the crap out of people, they are unlikely to decide that they don’t want to tell people that they have caught the guy) had 186,000 views and 500 retweets (granted this is not a Trump or Musk level visibility, but it is significant). Another had over 160,000 views.
Twitter, per their usual standard, did not reply to requests for comment.
The problem Twitter has is that if they leave this sort of content up in Europe, they could face a fine of up to 10 percent of their global revenue.
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