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28 A story is making the rounds in the media involving the first pat- ented strain of genetically modified marijuana a new product developed by Monsanto. The story complete with images of the GM weed and a photo of James Adamson president of a firm called Medical Marijuana Technologies exploded on social media the moment it was published by news website World News Daily Report. Through aggrega- tors that pull content from around the Internet it made its way onto other news sites. The problem was the story wasnt true. World News Daily Report is a satirical website that reports fake news fake as in made-up false untrue imaginary. The hoax was quickly revealed but every so often the story still pops up on social media shared by someone who believes that Monsanto has devel- oped the worlds first strain of GM pot. Its a problem thats only getting worse as the Internet and social media increasingly dominate our lives says Trish Jordan public and industry affairs director for Monsanto Canada. The growth of social media personal blogs and the Internet has provided a forum for people to share their opin- Misinformation Requires a Collective Approach to Science Communications As science and those who teach it come under attack by special interest groups experts say its more important than ever to have a concerted collective approach to communication. ions and that growth has definitely created more false information or false news reports she says. Jordan says satirical stories involving Monsanto written by websites like World News Daily Report and The Onion are rare. The latter news web- site published a story in 2014 with the headline Monsanto Develops Hardier Strain of Corn that Yields 4 Times Normal Litigation. Anyone with a sense of humour can usually figure out that its a joke she says. But with legitimate news stories not so much. Sometimes with Monsanto there is a tiny grain of fact in a story she says. But then it gets taken out of context or changed to the point where the online opinion or story is misleading. Thanks to news aggregators and Rich Site Summaries more commonly known as RSS feeds its easier than ever for misinformation to spread and more difficult to correct the information.