Through 1.5 million facebook shares and mass hysteria, the relatively harmless woodlouse spider is mistaken to be a deadly human killer! (even though the only things these guys can really kill are pill bugs and millipedes.) So how did this harmless arachnid become a stormfront of hysteria? It all started when FaceBook user Gary Neaderhiser made a post with an outrageous claim of “NEW DEADLY SPIDER SPREADS ACROSS THE USA!” In his post it was stated that this spider killed a confirmed 5 people and has been spotted over many states in the south. While the spider may look absolutely abhorrent like all of his relatives, the woodlouse spider is just your average arachnid. Jim Kalisch took the picture of the original spider in the post which had a watermark from the University of Nebraska Department of Entomology. Jim said that he was disappointed by the facebook post for the usage of their photo, which made the post look like it was endorsed by the department. Kalisch also spoke about an older hoax of the “butt spider” which bit peoples rear ends when they went to the toilet, which is also fake like this one. The reason the butt spider hoax was created was because the creator wanted to see how gullible people were. Gary Neaderhiser probably likely had the same thing in mind with the woodlouse spider. Gary Neaderhiser later even said that the post was fake and he just posts stuff like that on the daily. In the end Gary was just trying to spread his lies for his own entertainment and he succeeded.
Questions:
Why do you think people were so gullible to share this over 1.5 million times?
(I believe that this is because of a simple fear of arachnids but at the same time it stumps me to think that over 1.5 million people would be so easily fooled by something they can google search.)
Do you think that some fake news stories like these will just continue to get popular or do you think the masses will eventually start to do their research?
(I don’t think people will start to do their research in all honesty, sometimes a bit of fear and insanity mix to make something clickbait that spreads like a disease.)
Replies
Well done Kyle!
I think people shared this over 1.5 million times because people believe a lot of things that they hear. I think fake news stories like these will continue to get popular because people share these news stories with their friends and families with out doing much research to see if it is true or not. I think that people will make up these stories to get peoples attention.
Some of the stuff that people will believe, especially people on facebook is absolutely amazing, because they just see something and automatically decide its true. I really don't know how to explain how facebook users are so dumb, but they just are. I also think that when a fake news story happens like this, they only have so far before it's completely dead.
people are so gullible because they will believe anything on the internet and some people can be so scared of arachnids that they are willing to share anything on the internet. I think that the fake new will continue to get popular because people believe evrything on the internet.
I think that fake news will still continue to be a problem. This is because the people who post these fake stories are only doing it to get "views" and to get a rise out of people. Also society who is seeing this fake news will most likley not take the time to futher reseach the topic or see if the source that posted the story is reliable. Becuase as people we have a tendency to believe most things we see on the news.
It's sad to see that so many people believe in all of this fake news that is on the internet. You can't always believe what is on here I also think that now everyone is using clickbait to get get views and make money. People get brain washed thinking that it is true. People just need to be more aware of what source they are getting their information from.
1. People are very gullible and stupid when it comes to things on the internet. Often, people just believe the first thing they read and share it with everyone they know.
2. I'm not optimistic for people when it comes to this.
I can agree with you there, this was probably caused by the common fear of arachnids that a large chunk of the population has.
I think that some fake stories like these will just continue to get popular rather then people start researching because I feel like we get so gullible a lot of times. In my opinion, I see clickbait and posts on apps/the internet that make you want to click on it to see what it is. I feel like many of the posts are edited, meaning they changed the picture/video to look different. I think that some posts are funny, but I can not see why people believe some things on the internet. I also think people get to lazy to the point where they just believe it instead of researching it and seeing if it were true.
Yeah, clickbait is surprisingly effective, I am honestly confused on why people trust random people more than a trusted news outlet.
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