Too many people these days seem to be getting their local news from social-media outlets where the public-submitted information that is dispensed shouldn’t be trusted.
But an amazing number see this stuff and believe it – and they immediately react to it, assuming what they’ve read is true because, well, someone posted it.
Last week, for example, the father of an Oslo Middle School student used one of Facebook’s Vero Beach community pages to complain that his son had been “kicked off” a school bus “miles from home” and in “pretty nasty weather” because the boy was “laughing about what another kid was doing.”
His post, to no one’s surprise, unleashed the keyboard watchdogs, most of whom were outraged that a School District bus driver would show such a lack of concern and take such drastic action.
As of Monday afternoon, in fact, the post had produced more than 270 comments, and the vitriol expressed was palpable to anyone scrolling through the responses.
Commenters viciously attacked the bus driver and harshly criticized the school district for tolerating drivers who they claim don’t care about the kids they’re transporting.
Some commenters were so upset that they accused the bus driver of “child endangerment” and urged the father to notify law-enforcement authorities. Others suggested he hire an attorney and sue the school district. More than a few called for the driver to be fired.
One seemingly angry commenter wrote that he would have “hunted down” the bus driver.
Another commenter was so enraged she wrote that, if the child were hers, she would’ve taken matters into her own hands – “I would be in jail,” she typed – while another called the driver a “moron.”
What did those commenters have in common? It didn’t matter to any of them that, according to his initial post, the father based his complaint solely on what his son had told him.
Yes, a few more rational commenters questioned the post’s merit, raising reasonable doubts about the veracity of the boy’s story. But most of those who responded rendered their verdicts and spewed their hostile opinions with certainty, as if they had personally witnessed what happened on the bus.
They did what too many social-media addicts do: They didn’t wait for the facts. They rushed to judgment.
It appears, however, they were wrong.
According to school district spokesperson Cristen Maddux, the father’s complaint was promptly investigated – relying on GPS tracking technology, video from cameras mounted inside the bus, and interviews with the principal and Transportation Department officials – and found to be false.
Maddux, posting on the page as the “School District of Indian River County,” responded to the father’s allegation by explaining that the evidence showed the boy was not kicked off the bus.
Instead, she wrote, Oslo Middle School Principal Rahshad Morgan confirmed the boy and another student were “returned to the school due to misbehavior on the bus.”
Maddux’s post seemed to have quieted the Facebook conversation, though she said Monday the father had contacted her Sunday night through Facebook Messenger to say he hadn’t heard from the school since publishing his complaint, so she asked Morgan to call him.
Otherwise, the comments had all but stopped.
“I hope (the father) will have the courage to apologize to the bus driver, as well as to (the School District) for his accusations,” one commenter responded. “I am sure all the students on the bus were delayed getting home because of the students misbehaving.”
As of Monday afternoon, no such apology had been posted. The father’s lone remark, after his initial post, was in response to a comment questioning his parenting.
He needs to step up.
Unless the father can prove the school district is wrong, he should take responsibility for the irresponsibility he displayed in using a public social-media platform to author a post, based only his misbehaving son’s word, accusing a bus driver of reckless behavior and casting aspersions on school officials.
The Facebook page on which the father posted has nearly 70,000 members, which means his complaint probably was seen by thousands of our neighbors.
How many of those people read his remarks – as well as the wrongheaded barrage of disparaging comments – and now see the school district in a negative light?
The father can, and should, correct the record. And he should apologize.
The same goes for the Facebook page administrators, who, without requiring even a shred of proof, allowed this father and venom-filled commenters to publicly defame the bus driver, condemn his actions and malign the district.
Now that the school district has told us it has evidence to disprove the father’s story – and he has not challenged its claim – the administrators should either remove the post or, at the very least, place a disclaimer on it.
It’s obvious, judging by the tone and content of the discourse in response to the father’s post, that too many of the page’s readers lack the discernment needed to gauge the credibility of posts containing potentially newsworthy information.
“What about the no child left behind law?” one commenter wrote in response to the father’s post.
The bottom line is: If more people are gravitating to social-media outlets – to these kinds of community pages – for their local news, administrators need to monitor their pages to vet these kinds of posts to ensure their accuracy.
That’s what daily newspaper editors used to do – check stories before they ran – and that’s why social media, which has pretty much killed local dailies, is proving a poor and dangerous substitute.
