False Tweet About Missing Girls in D.C. Goes Viral

Think twice before you share.

Earlier this month, viral tweets helped to raise awareness about several young people of color who have been reported missing in the Washington, D.C. area. The news gained traction, in part, due to the official Twitter account of the D.C. Police Department, who began tweeting out photos and information of some of the missing minors. Thanks to retweets, some of the posts were shared thousands of times, which helped authorities locate several of the missing people.

However, the downside of viral content is that sometimes, false information gets shared – and then re-shared – many times. (Just look at the uptick of "fake news" within the past few months.) As noted by BuzzFeed, a tweet has been circulating the internet that wrongly states that 14 girls went missing in D.C. within 24 hours. At the time of writing, the post has racked up over 47k retweets, and sparked online outrage that such a fact was being underreported by the media.

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D.C. Police told NBC Washington that the viral tweet is not true. "While the disappearance of any child is reason for concern, at no point in recent weeks have 14 girls disappeared from D.C. in a single day," officials said.

Furthermore, the photos in the popular tweet were lifted from a New York Daily News article. Shaun King, the author of the piece, noted this on Twitter. He also pointed out that many of those girls weren't from D.C. at all, and some had been missing for several years.

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The bottom line is that it remains essential for people to advocate for missing young people of color; studies have shown that 36.7% of all missing persons under the age of 17 are black. And, as King points out in his article, "the stories of young black girls and women who are missing don't get the Elizabeth Smart or Natalee Holloway treatment." This makes online awareness that much more essential – and effective.

But, as with anything you'd share on the internet, it's important to make sure that what you're sharing is, in fact, true. As with fake news, it's always a good idea to investigate the source of a photo, article, or infographic before you hit retweet. After all, spreading false information isn't going to help anyone, no matter how good your intentions might be.

Despite the confusion that the viral false image might have caused on social media, there is a cause for concern with regard to the situation in Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Police Department has stated that there's been 501 reported cases of missing children in D.C. just in 2017 alone, with 22 cases still open.

According to CNN, just this week, members of the Congressional Black Caucus filed a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey, asking for a federal investigation to look into why there has been a trend of young people of color going missing. Their letter noted that "when children of color go missing, authorities often assume they are runaways rather than victims of abduction," and requested that they "devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly, or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed."

Related: Most Media Outlets Aren't Reporting on the Disappearance of Black and Latinx D.C. Teens

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