This week in class we watched a great episode of Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation, we also take a look at how much one wrong story on the news can cause someone’s life to spiral out of control and how social media can affect those. As we saw while watching the “Aunt From Hell”.
This week’s Black Mirror episode we watched Hated in The Nation, it is about how a journalist posted article and received major backlash from the public. Because of that article she has been non stop receiving hate mail, harassment, and even death threats. The journalist dies in her house and her husband was badly wounded, while the man said that she had killed herself. After this happened there was also another man who received the same kind of messages and threats as long as the #deathto___ trend. The thread was created to pick someone that was the most hated and if that person has the most votes he or she will die. During the episode they found out that their were technology advanced bees in their brains, and the bees were somehow hacked by someone to target the number one person that was voted the most. After trying to save a victim, the hacker then targets the people who are using the thread to teach them a “moral lesson”. At the end of the episode we see the police closing in on where staying, and then the episode comes to end leaving a great cliffhanger. This makes us think about the possibilities that could have happen if the episode even played 5 more minutes. For example does the hacker, get away, get caught, or use the bees to kill all the cops and has to be on the run forever, or even if someone rehacks the bees to turn them back to normal.
During class this Wednesday, we watched how the news can twist a story to make it more appealing to the public eye. They do this without realizing how it can effect the people on the receiving end of it. Especially nowadays with social media, all it can take is one wrong and false story in the news to ruin someones life because of how much hate they can receive on the internet. A perfect example is from the multiple videos we watched from class talking about the “World’s Worst Aunt” or the “Auntie From Hell”. Even trusted news channels were quick to air this story without knowing all the facts, or maybe they ran it anyways because of the possible ratings they could get. The story was originally aired saying how the Aunt was suing her 8 year old nephew for her medical bills, and the news went onto bash her. After the public saw the story aired, it quickly blew upon social media and the had a field day, she received so much hate online that it made it difficult for her to find work. Even after going live on the news with her nephew to clear up any misconceptions about the story to maybe stop receiving such messages online. This did not really workout for her and now she had changed her hair color and her identity so that she may go on with her life. This goes to show us how fake news and social media is capable of doing anything and will go after anyone.
7 reasons why fake news goes viral, according to experts
This Article shows and tells us why fake news can be so appealing, it gives multiple examples on why we are so drawn into it. I thought this article related well to the “Aunt From Hell” story because it was fake news because not the whole story was told and it forever ruined her life.
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
I really like where you were going with all the predictions on how the episode ended. I was also left guessing trying to figure out what had happened. I honestly think because Blue had sent the text message that said “got him”, That she actually did bring him to justice and in jail. I don’t think she wold have killed him or he gotten away. But I really think if they went further with this episode as like a series of its own, it would do so well and there’s infinite possibilities of what they could have done with it because of the technology and the terrorist too.
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