Golden Gate Bridge conspiracy theories sparked by viral TikTok

The algorithm pushed those videos to other people’s feeds and momentum built. Others posted speculation about what on earth might be going on with the bridge and said how much they would miss it when it was gone.

TikTok’s algorithm includes a range of interactions: likes, comments, engagement time, followers, interests and location. It pushed the videos to the feeds of people in San Francisco and those who routinely like posts about the city. It also seemed to reach the curious conspiracy. According to a 2018 study published by Science, lies spread faster on the Internet than the truth. Watchdogs have pressured social media platforms to mitigate such misinformation, but the appetite to combat it head-on has waned. The starkest example of this trend came this week when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the decision to end fact-checking on Instagram, Facebook and other Meta platforms.

On Wednesday, the woman who posted the first video made another in an attempt to put an end to the speculation.

“I just said the plane flew away from the Golden Gate Bridge, so that was the last time we were going to see it,” she said. Stunned by the way her comments had been taken out of context, she herself tried to mitigate the misinformation.

That video has only gotten 64,000 views.

According to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy’s live camera at Crissy Field, the Golden Gate Bridge was still standing Thursday.