Slow news day?
More than a dozen news outlets picked up a story on Friday claiming that CNN accidentally aired 30 minutes of pornography instead of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown to Boston viewers via cable provider RCN.
Those web news stories appear to just be based on a Twitter user, @solikearose, who claimed that the content was aired on Thursday evening. The CNN local network provider denied that adult content was aired.
“We are in the process of researching this incident but see no evidence our CNN network feed was compromised last evening in Boston,” Jeff Carlson, senior vp and general manager, RCN Boston, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
Barbara Levin, vp, communications at CNN national, said in a statement: “Despite media reports to the contrary, RCN assures us that there was no interruption of CNN’s programming in the Boston area last night.”
The apparently false claim arrives at a time when there’s been a rare national conversation surrounding dissemination of fake news stories, primarily through social media networks like Twitter and Facebook.
That conversation was spurred by the flood of stories, many on Facebook, that made demonstrably fake claims during the U.S. presidential campaign in order to drive users from the social network to sites where those high-trafficked stories could be monetized through display ads.
