Social: Escaped Prisoners, TV Fiction, And Living This In Real Time

More than a week ago, three prisoners escaped from a prison in Orange County, California.  Three very dangerous prisoners awaiting trials for murder, attempted murder, torture, and whatever else you wanna throw at them, they probably did it.  Bad, bad hombres.  One of them, Hossein Nayeri, was equated to Hannibal Lecter.  This had folks on edge as far south as San Diego and the US-Mexico borders and as far North as Los Angeles, probably even further north since two of them were appended in northern California on Friday.

This probably has a Hollywood script written all over it.  Which means the comparison of Nayeri to Hannibal Lecter an interesting one.  Lecter was far, far worse than this guy.  If Hannibal Lecter was a real person, he'd probably go and find the people who compared him to Nayeri and, well…anyways, during this time while Nayeri was on the run, his ex-wife went into hiding, fearing for her life since she helped authorities lure him out into the open.  Nayeri had escaped to Iran where we do not have any relationship with.  It was his former wife who go him to go to Spain where authorities was able to nab him and extradite him to the US (KTLA).

So, had me thinking about the TV show, The Following.  In the series, the wife of a serial killer had to go into hiding with her child because her husband and his killer cult were looking to find them.  I'm sure we do not have to go into the realm of Hollywood to find real examples of people in hiding to escape their abusive or whacked-out husbands.  

What had me thinking about this real life criminal episode was how close this was to me in Los Angeles and how developments from authorities and the media was followed so closely on social media like Twitter.  

It's another example of how indispensable Twitter has become as a source of news and information.  I know, I could have gone right to this part here.  It got me thinking about major events in the last year like the Paris attacks and how Twitter has supplemented 24-hour news networks to obtain up-to-the-minute news.  This is great, right?  For the most part.

The problem with this is that social media is also a platform for misinformation or wrong information.  In following the Oregon standoff, much of the information are incorrect.  Misinformation or false information came from Tea Party and militia groups on a regular basis.  But they were no the sole guilty parties.  The left also did the same but to a lesser extent.  You have to be careful about what you read on Twitter and other social media and gauge for yourself what sources are deemed trustworthy.