Looking back on life in 2011 there’s no doubt in my mind that I learned about Osama Bin Laden, Steve Jobs, and Amy Winehouse dying by status updates on facebook. Other major news stories that I followed were often prompted by facebook. Social media websites have proven to be very good ways to stay updated on the most popular current social media issues.

However, social media does have it’s pitfalls and can fall victim to a rumour mill that can cause a global tornado. The best example of this happened not less than one week ago. It was fueled by perfect timing and a perfect political situation. North Korea is one of the most media isolated nations in the world and a new, inexperienced leader was just thrust into power.

Rumours of Kim Jong-un’s death started last week on Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter. This rumour instantly went global sparking massive amounts of sharing on social media. No one has pinned down the initial source of this rumour but it infected the world through social media like nothing ever seen before. For such a huge piece of news to be started with a Weibo post and followed with written articles of all major news corporations shows a fundamental shift in the way news can be generated.

The idea of six degrees of separation is becoming a thing of the past. Social media is breaking down barriers between people, cultures, and regions.