Apple & the iPhone 7: Rumours, Lies and the Power of Social Media

Technology today regularly astounds me. It’s so easy to look around and take for granted everything we rely on in our day to day lives. It’s simple to overlook the power, expertise, creativity and knowledge that has gone into making our lives richer, and substantially more streamlined.  

It seems like every day there are brand new technological developments that should arguably blow the mind: self-driving cars; virtual reality glasses; passenger planes to space; food delivered from the palm of your hand; and my mum getting herself an iPhone 5S then wondering why she couldn't hear properly with the protective cellophane wrap covering the ear piece.

From Sci-Fi to reality in a quarter life span

Not even 30 years ago, this was the thinking straight from science fiction, more at place in films like Back To The Future and Blade Runner, as opposed to real life. It’s easy for a younger generation, myself included, to take this all for granted. 

But I’m 26, and even I remember the wonder at owning my very own computer. I remember sharing one computer amongst a class of 30. If I try hard enough, I might even still be able to remember the home phone numbers of my friends from school, ringing up and asking Mrs Leech or Mr Barker if I could speak to Andy or Simon, then arranging an exact time to meet at the corner shop because none of us had mobile phones. 

I’ve long intended to write a blog about digital natives and digital immigrants, Generation Y, Millennials and the proliferation of technology, but this blog isn't it. This blog isn’t strictly about technology.

But it started with a 'new' technological development.

Expandable widescreens on the iPhone 7

In fact, it started with a dear friend of mine deciding he’d now really like the new iPhone 7 after seeing some amazing specs for it. Now I’m a big fan of Apple, but I hadn’t seen anything definitive about the 7 yet. It’s all rumours and speculations; no designs or features have been revealed. 

So, he sent me a screenshot of the video below, supposedly posted by Apple on Facebook. 

Take a look at the video: 

Pretty amazing stuff right? Downright out of this world, but still incredible. And it kind of makes sense, it looks feasible. 

And that’s the point. Barring the name of the video creators at the end of the video, it’s assuredly Apple-like and ultra-realistic. It’s undoubtedly fooled a lot of people. Especially given the fact that it was posted by Apple themselves. 

Only it wasn’t. Therein lies the problem. A simple search for Apple on Facebook reveals Apple Inc. a page dedicated to the company, with legitimate details and liked by millions of people. However, it isn’t the verified Apple Store page, which actually has 7 million less likes. 

It’s easy to see which one looks more real than the other. Look further still, and there are tons of pages all dedicated to, or pretending to be, Apple, iPhones and the like. When you’re flicking through your Facebook feed and you glance at something that says Apple, with the logo you recognise and loads of likes, it’s so easy to assume it is real and believe it is true.

Is faking it easier than ever? 

And that’s what this blog is about. Has the proliferation of social media made it easier to spread rumours, lie about things, and generally just ‘make shit up’  that people will believe?

The internet is absolutely full of ludicrous and downright outlandish ‘click-bait’ stories. Wherever you look, it seems there is a new miracle story or sensational revelation. Nine times out of ten, they’re easy to spot as fake (for most of us), but sometimes, even the most astute will be fooled. 

Remember the fried rat at KFC? This simple post on Facebook quickly went viral and was believed by hundreds of thousands, probably because it’s everyone’s worst fear and there’s always the chance it could happen. 

Then there was the story that an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth that prompted NASA to issue an official statement denying the whole thing. Or the satire inspired quote from US Republican Presidential nominee Chris Christie about female viagra creating more lesbians. Crazy, but not totally unbelievable. 

If you don’t know about spoof sites like The Onion, a cursory glance wouldn’t necessarily indicate their stories are humourous, elaborate myths. 

Perhaps that’s where a lot of lies and hoaxes start; with an element of truth or possibility. Many are posted either via hacked accounts or from sites/accounts that look to be legitimate at a quick glance, but actually aren’t: MSNBC.website, rather than MSNBC.com; or the fake ‘Sky Breaking News twitter account. 

The Chris Christie quote was viewed and shared so many times that a political fact-checking company had to debunk the whole thing as a complete myth. But this story was only viewed 30,000 times, much less than the original! 

Celebrities read about their own death

As a natural target of public interest, celebrities regularly suffer their own share of fake news, in particular, death hoaxes. 

Tom Hanks, Jackie Chan, Robert Redford, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson have all seen “reports” on social media that they had been found dead in one scenario or another. Mccauley Culkin, as a wild, off-the-rails, teen has been the subject of a number of death hoaxes on different occasions, so much so that he's had to post pictures of himself to prove he’s alive. 

One death hoax was actually a mistake though. With the hashtag #nowthatchersdead trending, referring to ‘Now the ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has passed’, some Twitter users including Kim Kardashian innocently read it as ‘Now that Cher the singer is dead’. 

Before long, news of Cher’s death had spread across Twitterverse. 

Such was the spate of these hoaxes, I remember being in the pub when Michael Jackson passed away, with someone reading it from Twitter, and genuinely not believing it to be true, but rather another unsubstantiated rumour mill. 

Where do we look for the truth?

I recently read an article about how scientists were studying tweets and trying to determine whether they could automatically rank tweets based on their supposed believability and truth content. For example, tweets from the ground during real-life events tend to be littered with spelling and grammar mistakes and the occasional expletive. 

Understandable if you’re running away from gunshots or a plane crash. 

But, BREAKING NEWS: adding in exclamation marks and CONFIRMED journalistic type words means you're likely to be lying!!!! 

Even verified check marks don’t necessarily mean what you think; Morrissey has a verified account despite publicly admitting neither he nor his team use Twitter at all. 

So do we need satire disclaimers on certain fakes posts, and should the internet and news providers be investing in trust meters and knowledged-based rankings? Isn’t that what trusted, reputable news sites are for? 

In the Paris attacks, social media worked so well; there was instantaneous news that helped people get to safety. But could that effect be used in reverse? Could a few well-placed, well timed tweets cause mass panic?

This is where the importance of reputable news outlets comes in, and why fact checking remains of the utmost importance. I’d recommend watching the Newsroom for more on this; a number of episodes cover how vital it is to check your facts and wait for confirmation before publishing a story that others claim to be true. 

Entertainment or concern? 

It’s hugely entertaining to see the gullible get baited, but when does it stop becoming a joke? Humorous and laughable stories are fun to share, but should we really be condoning social media accounts and established websites that play fast and loose with the news? 

Sometimes it can just start out as a harmless joke, or even a mistake. Then one slip of the mind, and we believe it and share it. Maybe someone we trust shares it and so we believe it without questioning. Then our brains can stubbornly refuse to accept that it just isn’t true. 

That’s what happened with the fake Back To The Future day in 2012. One person just got the date wrong, someone in authority didn’t question it, and suddenly loads of people believed the future was here when actually it was easy to check the real date was October 21st 2015. One hoaxer even photoshopped the image to support the false 2012 date!

Sometimes, all it takes is one overtired intern, one moment’s lapse in concentration, and one simple click of the button. And suddenly, the BBC Twitter account has retweeted a post claiming The Queen is dead. 

Is that really inconceivable? You’d probably believe that, wouldn’t you?