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Ironically, the reason for all this in the first place.

I've also said this before and I'll say it again: names of suspects and even convicted criminals should not be shared unless necessary*. That just makes no sense for rehabilitation as it opens people up for judgement in a court of opinion. Justice is the job of the justice systems and should not generally involve the wider public.

Could there be issues with the judgement or other events where the only way to achieve justice is via the press? Sure, probably, but I don't think the default should be that if I google the name of someone I can find if they or someone with a similar name (and god forbid, appearance) were involved in a crime.

*: unless necessary here can cover cases like trying to find an individual on the run, or when their previous crime is meant to exclude them from specific lines of work, although even that should be on a need-to-know basis imo, not public info.

Being a mother of three plays against her in my mind.

She didn't do this for her children but her own selfish reasons. Her children will suffer from her actions and therefore she is an irresponsible parent that does not consider the well being of her children.

For me, the being a mother of three and that being mentioned just has descriptive value. It doesn't affect my judgement of her. It just helps me place who did this in the context of society and this anecdote, for whatever that matters - haters/bigots come in all shapes and sizes of course

They never use that argument for men.

"He's a father of 3"

They're always coming up with an excuse.

They arrested the guy too. And I'm all for it.

Fox News FAFOed 787 million legal consequences.

Now do newspapers next!

The irony of naming someone as the "woman shares name of man she believes was the one arrested for crime before the police released the name" before the police release the name is incredibly ridiculous.

It's "Metro" it's a free newspaper that's available on every bus in the UK owned by the same people as the infamous paper: the Daily Mail. It has the same low-quality journalism but with the opposite spin (centre-left).

I wouldn't trust those two papers to wipe my arse clean because there'd be more shit smeared onto my cheeks!

She's a millionaire, so not a lot of support for her.

This is just the current tech's version of a timeless problem, though. People have always been able to just say shit and cause problems because others believed them.

Examples:

Emmett Till was lynched back in the 1950s due to a lying white woman, becoming an iconic part of the civil rights movement.

In the late 1930s, the War of the Worlds story freaked a bunch of people out when it was first broadcast.

In 1897, Mark Twain's death was falsely reported enough that he publicly commented about it.

There's also the Great Moon Hoax in 1835.

William Anderton is a famous example of fake news from the 1700s.

we've even got fake news in ancient Rome involving Octavian, Marc Antony, and Cleopatra.

People will always be doing this dumb shit, whether it's a town crier, a printing press, or a social media site.

The key is to exercise critical thinking and promote its use to everyone.

Not if they start facing repercussions for their actions, like this woman is.

I look at it the way I look at drunk driving. If you drink and drive, most of the time you're going to be fine. You're not going to get in an accident, and you're not going to get caught. But what you're doing is still dangerous and wrong.

If you do get caught because you were swerving all over the road and a cop saw you, you're going to be in some shit, but it probably won't ruin your life. If you cross the divider into oncoming traffic and obliterate a family in a minivan, on the other hand, once you're out of the hospital you should be dragged to court and then to prison for what you actually did.

Deliberately spreading misinformation online is like driving drunk. You're going to get away with it 99% of the time, and nothing major will actually come from the lies you spread specifically. However, if you're so reckless with your lies that you cross that metaphorical divider and start a series of escalating race riots that do demonstrable damage, then you get to suffer the consequences for what you've done.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.