Appeal for responsible use of social media to help find missing persons

The father of a young woman who was found almost two weeks after she went missing, has called on social media users to be mindful of the anxiety they create by spreading false news about missing persons cases.
Eyon Manning said in an OBSERVER media interview that users of websites and individuals who operate Facebook pages “don’t care how the families of victims feel” when they post misleading information that hampers case solving.
“That’s at the back of their minds, so when you give somebody that anxiety, where that person is actually going to tell themselves, ‘Yeah, this website says this and that website says that’, and then you are looking for credence in that website and you are not going to find it,” Manning said.
His daughter was found 10 days after she was reported missing and the father, who has been vocal about how such cases are handled, said that his family encountered “fake news” when searching for Simpson.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)