Research and Info Literacy Skills: "Spike Lee Latest Celeb to Practice Reckless Tweeting"
Spike Lee wasn’t the first to retweet the erroneous address on Twitter blindly accepted by many as that of George Zimmerman, the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month. But the filmmaker’s message — sent last week to his 240,000 Twitter followers — was the most viral.
From The Orlando Sentinel: “Spike Lee’s Zimmerman tweet causes elderly couple to fear for their lives, flee their home”
The problem is — the address does not belong to Zimmerman, but to Elaine and David McClain, an elderly couple in their 70s. After Lee’s retweet, the couple has been forced to flee their home and live in a hotel given the rapidly spreading threats of violence
See Also: Video: Couple’s address tweeted as George Zimmerman’s home (via ClickOrlando.com)
See Also: The Smoking Gun Explains The History of the Tweet and Retweet
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.