Post-truth media, fake news, the Euros, Coca-Cola

One of the most noteworthy moments of the UEFA European Football Championship, still running, occurred off the pitch with the captain of the Portugal team shifting cola bottles to the side and displaying a preference for water at the start of his press conference. The Coca-Cola Company’s share price fell a little around this time, leading to news outlets around the world, such as CBS News (source),  The Guardian (source), and Seven News (source), declaring that the athlete caused the stock to tumble, by as much as $4 billion; these were followed by commentaries, such as one published by Bloomberg, about the influence of influencers (source).

Forbes reports that “In the current (social) media landscape, truth can be deliberately manipulated, and disinformation is a growing business… This phenomenon affects individuals and businesses. And it has the potential to undermine democracy.” After simply checking at what times the stock price fell and the incident at the Euros occurred, they go on to explain that largely due to dividend payments “Coca-Cola’s market value was already down $4 billion” before ‘bottlegate’. They also note that by “the end of the Wall Street trading day, Coca-Cola’s share price went up $0.30, adding $1.3 billion in valuation to the company”, meaning that the stock price actually went up and not down after the incident. Source.

Okay then.

Note: Another lesser point may be of interest. Many news outlets report the footballer as saying “drink water”, when he actually just said “water” (or in his native Portuguese, “agua”).