Dear Cointelegraph Readers:
We are incredibly grateful for the support and trust you have placed in our publication over the past 10 years. We strive to deliver the most thoughtful, engaging and impactful news affecting the cryptocurrency space.
Earlier today, during routine coverage, Cointelegraph’s social media team posted a message on from BlackRock. This was false, the result of misinformation. The news originated from an unconfirmed screenshot posted by an X user who claimed it was from the Bloomberg Terminal.
Cointelegraph ultimately did not publish an article with this incorrect information, but we deeply regret having published it in error on X and the impact it has caused. An internal investigation revealed that our standard procedure for posting breaking news on social media, which requires checking sources before posting on social media, was not followed.
The chronology of events is as follows:
13:17:30 UTC: The editorial team was alerted to the rumored news via a Telegram channel that Cointelegraph employees use to discover stories that might be of interest to readers (Figure 1). The full conversation is shared below.
13:19:27UTC: Employee 1 reposted the lead text shared by a since-deleted Telegram account (Figure 2) to an internal Slack channel (Figure 3).
13:24:16UTC: In an effort to publish the events as soon as possible, Employee 2 published the report on X without prior confirmation of the veracity of the source by the editor. This violates Cointelegraph’s social media process, where source confirmation and editorial approval are required before publishing (Figure 4).
13:48:38 UTC: Readers reported the issue to Cointelegraph via social media channels (Figure 5).
13:52:19 UTC: In an internal Cointelegraph chat, Employee 1 noted that the source could not be located (Figure 6).
13:54:14UTC: Cointelegraph employee 3 edited the message in X to clarify that the information was not confirmed (Figure 7).
14:03:42 UTC: Cointelegraph contacted BlackRock and Bloomberg Terminal and they removed the post (Figure 8).
14:32:23UTC: After receiving confirmation from BlackRock that the report was incorrect, Cointelegraph retracted the initial tweet and issued the following statement (Figure 9):
To ensure something like this doesn’t happen again, the Cointelegraph team is carefully auditing and reviewing our social media management processes, especially around authenticating breaking news before a post can be published. We are holding discussions with all employees involved and will make any necessary structural changes.
This incident reminds the Cointelegraph team that our actions have serious ramifications on the entire cryptocurrency community. We are committed to learning from these mistakes and adhering to the highest standards of journalism.
Sincerely,
The Cointelegraph team
