Did CNN really air porn on its news channel?

The news, based on a single tweet, spread like wildfire across social media

CNN viewers may have been exposed to 30 minutes of hardcore pornography on Thursday night. This was the peg used by major news outlets to run a story that proved to be false in the end.

The news, which spread like wildfire across social media, was based on a single tweet by account holder @solikearose which supposedly included an image of CNN broadcasting porn instead of Anthony Bourdain’s scheduled show 'Parts Unknown'.

CNN sprang into action after the news broke out and denied airing inappropriate content to its viewers. The news channel issued a statement blaming cable operator RCN for the incident.



"The RCN cable operator in Boston aired inappropriate content for 30 minutes on CNN last night. CNN has asked for an explanation."

Cable operator RCN also issued a statement after investigating reports clarifying the issue.

"Regarding the reported incident involving CNN in Boston, RCN has no evidence this occurrence took place on the CNN feed," Jeff Carlson, senior vice president and general manager of RCN Boston, said in an emailed statement. "We have not had any other reports of this incident other than this single customer's tweet."

"Our review of network operations and our call center phone logs during the last evening show no indications that this impacted any other customer than the one single customer," the statement continued. "Only a technical review of the individual’s equipment involved could ascertain how this might have occurred. We’ve confirmed that this one customer’s account is in proper working order."



This perfectly highlights how news spreads and how damaging it could be to any given organisation or individual. A single tweet was used as the basis of the story by major news websites that include The Independent. Fact checking largely didn’t begin until the stories were published. Surprisingly, the @solikearose account has since turned private.

False news has become a major concern after social networking websites such as Facebook were blamed for swaying the US Election by spreading fake news content amongst its users.

This article originally appeared on Mashable.