Several news agencies are reporting that a stock plunge for Apple was caused by a teenage prank.
The teenager posted that Steve Jobs had suffered a massive heart attack on iReport.com. The report caused Apple stock to drop $4.8 billion dollars until Apple released a statement denying the report.
iReport is a website setup by CNN where anyone can post news items. The site is essentially a news based blog. Still, investors believed a posting, not bothering to check their facts with any credible source including Apple itself. Information illiteracy, not a teenage prank, caused this financial debacle.
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I think this is such a fascinating story. I had heard about it already, but didn’t know the origin of the prank. And thanks for the link to iReport, Melissa! (So is that where the news world is going?)
Information literacy is so essential for any 21st century citizen. This is at the heart of the “Wikipedia worries” teachers have had – will their students recognize if a source is credible for a particular paper?
Among everything else we’re already teaching our kids, I suspect adding a course on information and digital literacy would be very helpful indeed.