Another incredible tweet I find contained actual footage of a young boy who had been used by the media in exploitative fashion. The tweet linked to a video of a reporter interviewing the boy who had been pulled into a hospital when the attack was alleged to have occurred, and had water poured all over him. The resulting footage of dozens of children, confused, scared, and having water poured over them is extremely easy to misconstrue and mislead and evoke pathos in audiences. The interview included the boy and his father, who was notified that his family had been caught in the attack and had rushed to the hospital to find the bizarre scene. He was confused and angry. The tweet present this story in a surprisingly non partisan manner, without making any assumptions or claims as the the reality or fiction of the chemical attack in Syria. However, it is a powerful thought evoker, clearly witnessed by the thousand or so favorites and retweets. Again, self reporting or social media witness provides a valuable check and balance to what in the past was just the loud shouting of conventional news. As the public taps into twitter accounts which provide more detail and description of events as they unfold, opinion shifts in potential more rational directions. Instead of the mob crying for ‘bomb this, bomb that’, we see a shift towards skepticism; the Buddha was once famously quoted as saying “question everything”, social media’s independent reporting can make for more rational public opinion which in turn will keep nation’s (hopefully) out of many conflicts they would have rushed blindly into in the past.

Boy ‘victim’ in video of alleged chemical attack in Douma says he was asked to go to the hospital, where people “grabbed” him and started “pouring water” over his head.#Syria pic.twitter.com/5sMreg2CFZ

— In the NOW (@IntheNow_tweet) April 19, 2018