Joe Biden was among a slew of high profile figures to have his Twitter account hacked. By shorting stocks, whoever hacked AP’s Twitter account stood to make enormous profits from the temporary stock market tank. This is the inherent danger of our growing reliance on social media platforms as authoritative sources of information. As media institutions decline in size, funding and impact, the public increasingly relies on social media platforms for news. Broader questions have already been raised about when Twitter, Facebook or other social media platforms should or should not censor content.

Source: Otago Daily Times July 19, 2020 16:30 UTC