Thursday a 20-year-old man was arrested for threatening to shoot someone if he got 100 RTs.
According to UK publication The Independent, “A subsequent tweet included a picture appearing to show a wounded man with the caption from McAnuff’s Twitter account (now suspended) reading ‘Man Down. Mission Completed.'” Thankfully, the police later confirmed it to be just a twisted joke, and the pictured gun an airsoft rifle.
What’s interesting about this story is that it’s not particularly unique. People make threats on social media all the time; people demand retweets and likes all the time. The reason it came to the attention of police and news media is the fusion of the two: social media savvy and negative shock value. The man, Dakkari Dijon McAnuff, achieved his goal–pure unabashed attention-whoring. This kind of attention is propagated by our news (which gives attention to these usually-empty threats) and a hungry social media culture. Who contributed to these 100 RTs? We need to be more purposeful about how we consume and contribute to our media.
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Unfortunately, this is the kind of negative effect that social media can have on those who use it incorrectly. I surely hope no one retweeted his tweet because it says something equally startling about them as well. Also, is 100 RTs really worth someones life?
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This is clear proof that people will do ANYTHING for a little attention. The fact that someone will risk their freedom for a few retweets clearly shows the negative influences of social media.
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Social media is incredibly powerful and, joking or not, this kind of behavior proves how it can be misused. I think that social media is generally used as a source of good and it’s things like this draw attention to the negativity surrounding it.
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So many criminals have been caught via social media and so many people have been incarcerated because of threats made via social media. It is a great tool for this type of thing because so many people who commit crimes or threaten to commit them will brag about them online…and then get caught.
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