falsehoods and confirmation bias - Lady and rental bike.
Imagine that - Ben Crump falsely rushed to judgement?!

See citation for video.

from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/05/23/citi-bike-karen-danger-confirmation-bias/70242982007/

'Citi Bike Karen' viral video shows why we shouldn't rush to judgment
All of us can take three steps to overcome confirmation bias and easy
access to social media from endangering people and making ourselves look
like fools.
Dustin SigginsOpinion contributor

For almost a week in the middle of May, “Citi Bike Karen” was the face
of American racism. A white pregnant physician’s assistant caught on
video arguing with a group of Black men about who had the right to a
rented bike, Sarah Comrie was crying and yelling for help. The video
went viral, racking up national media coverage and over 40 million views.

Comrie was doxxed, put on leave by her employer and accused by civil
rights attorney Ben Crump of “weaponiz(ing) her tears” in ways that
“endangered” the men in the video.

There was just one problem with the story: It went viral not for its
accuracy, but because it fit many people’s preconceived notions about
race in America. It turns out that Comrie was the victim – and the
person with the right to the bike – and her attorney has the receipts to
prove it.

NBC News' New York affiliate was one of several news outlets that
confirmed that the receipt matched the rental code on the bike, causing
NBC News to update its original story and Crump to delete his tweet.

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False narratives often spread quick and confirm our biases
Confirmation bias, or the human brain’s tendency to prefer evidence that
reinforces existing beliefs, is not new. Nor is the difficulty in
overcoming it. What is new is the constant stream of out-of-context or
entirely false narratives that fly across the world in a moment − and
across our often biased, narrow sources of news and commentary. Instead
of thinking critically, we react, sometimes with harmful consequences,
as Comrie discovered.

All of us can take three steps to overcome confirmation bias and easy
access to social media from endangering people and making ourselves look
like fools. The first is to slow down and think critically when we read
something that perfectly fits our worldview. Second, we must wait for
all the facts to come out and look for original sources. Third – and
hardest of all – let the evidence dictate our opinion, not the other way
around.
Fox News ran into this problem this month when it ran a story that
turned out to be false. The story fit the conservative narrative –
homeless veterans were being evicted from hotels in favor of migrants.
Instead of holding their fire to fact-check, multiple Fox News programs
spread a falsehood that they later had to correct on air after a local
news outlet dug up the truth.

In 2019, numerous left-of-center political commentators deleted tweets
that – sometimes violently – reacted to a white teenager with a MAGA hat
who appeared to be smirking at an elderly Native American man. Nick
Sandmann sued several news organizations for their coverage of a
12-second video that, like Comrie’s story, went viral for all the wrong
reasons. A couple of days later, a longer version of the video showed
Sandmann was a kid being harassed by a professional protester and other
adult agitators.

Sandmann reached a settlement with CNN, The Washington Post and NBC
News. Last year, a federal judge dismissed Sandmann's lawsuit against
Gannett (the owner of USA TODAY), The New York Times, ABC News and CBS News.

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3 steps to protect others and ourselves from spreading false information
All of us can take three steps to overcome confirmation bias and easy
access to social media from endangering people and making ourselves look
like fools. The first is to slow down and think critically when we read
something that perfectly fits our worldview. Second, we must wait for
all the facts to come out and look for original sources. Third – and
hardest of all – let the evidence dictate our opinion, not the other way
around.

It’s not easy to overcome confirmation bias. I’ve deleted my share of
thoughtless, factually incorrect Facebook posts. But it is our
obligation to try. Trust often doesn’t fly as far or fast as
out-of-context viral stories, and any of us could be Comrie, who says
she has received death threats, and Sandmann, who spent over a year
pursuing legal action against multiple news outlets.

Dustin Siggins is founder of Proven Media Solutions.
We’ve all been the fool who contributed to the problem of not waiting
for the facts or going to the trouble of finding them. In an era of
viral misinformation, we can be part of the solution or part of the
problem. The silver lining of the Comrie incident is that it should
confirm the one bias worth keeping: waiting (at least) 48 hours before
having an opinion on viral stories.

Dustin Siggins is founder of Proven Media Solutions.