Inland Empire Pages shares fabricated sex trafficking story, issues woefully inadequate correction
The incident raises questions about journalistic standards at the region's popular, community-focused Instagram "pages."
On Monday, June 24, the popular Instagram account, Inland Empire Pages shared a truly shocking story to its 237,000 followers. A screenshot of a Facebook post, which Inland Empire Pages shared as an Instagram reel, alleged that law enforcement had busted a “sex trafficking ring” in Highland, California. Sixty women and children, the grammatically challenged post alleged, had been trafficked in a box truck by men with cartel tattoos. The screenshot included a photo of several police cruisers surrounding a box truck, though it noted that “Cops would not let anyone take pictures.” Overlaid, in bold font, Inland Empire Pages raised the provocative question: “Why isn’t this all over the news ?”
The answer to that question? As one commenter succinctly put it:
Indeed, the Highland sex trafficking story was a fabrication that Inland Empire Pages passed along without verification or attribution. As the description at the bottom of the reel read:
Later that day, San Bernardino Media News published an Instagram story reporting that the trafficking report was “incorrect” (an understatement). The San Bernardino Police Department confirmed to SBMN that there had been a cartel-related bust in Highland involving “a lot of stolen vehicles, guns, [and] cargo theft.” But — crucially — “there were no trafficked women or children involved.”
The following morning, I reached out to Inland Empire Pages to inform them that the sex trafficking story was erroneous. I also asked where they got their information about the story and whether they would remove the post or issue a correction. Inland Empire Pages did not respond to my query.
Others also raised concerns about the post, as illustrated in these comments from Tuesday, June 25 (screenshots taken on July 1).
Despite these concerns, Inland Empire Pages did not issue a correction until the following day — Wednesday, June 26. And, as I’ll explain below, that correction was wholly insufficient. Meanwhile, the reel racked up more than 700,000 views, 12,000 likes, and 30,000 shares, and many commenters clearly thought the Highland sex trafficking story was legit.
A recipe for viral disinformation
An outrage-evoking, fabricated story about a cartel-related sex trafficking bust is the sort of thing that’s tailor made for social media virality. Social media algorithms are designed to keep users engaged, and one key way they do that is by amplifying highly emotional content. The fabricated Highland sex trafficking story was bound to provoke strong emotions, including: outrage that cartel members would do such a thing; relief that the women and children had been rescued; and fear that it could happen to others. The Facebook screenshot that Inland Empire Pages shared leaned into those fear appeals by suggesting that such traffickers are operating in our neighborhoods and targeting our kids for abduction. It read:
Be aware of your surroundings ! We need to know what's going on in our neighborhood. This is scary ! I was told by a dollar tree employee that 2 men tried to abduct a 6 and 11 year old boys coming out of the store last week also !
(Like the trafficking bust story, Inland Empire Pages provided no verification or further attribution for the alleged Dollar Tree abduction attempt, either).
Inland Empire Pages further stoked readers’ outrage by asking, “Why isn't this all over the news ?” This provokative question implies that the press ignored or perhaps even covered up news of the bust (rather than, you know, treating unattributed rumors with due skepticism and confirming their veracity before publishing). This implication — that the public wasn’t getting the full story — was reinforced by the Facebook screenshot’s claim that “Cops would not let anyone take pictures.” Many commenters jumped to their own conspiratorial conclusions:
Human trafficking is a terrible, global scourge. However, it’s also true that unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories regarding child sex trafficking are widespread on social media. As the Global Center for Human Trafficking at Montclair State University explains:
Many rumors ‘float’ through social media platforms sharing warnings about random kidnappings of children from playgrounds, traffickers marking cars of potential victims, or the ability of traffickers to track the phone number of anyone who responded to a specific text message. Human Trafficking has also moved in the center of elaborate conspiracies such as Pizzagate and the Wayfair Conspiracy, both of which were prominent in the QAnon conspiracy universe.
This trade in rumors and fantasies does real harm to anti-trafficking efforts. A leading anti-trafficking organization, Polaris explains that, “As a result of this misinformation, people who need immediate assistance from helplines are forced to wait on hold and may miss their opportunity to get out of real trafficking situations or to report valuable information about trafficking that is actually happening.” Such mis- and disinformation can also distort public perceptions of human trafficking and result in online harassment, privacy intrusions, and dangerous vigilantism, as the Pizzagate incident illustrates.
The problem is not just social media algorithms and conspiracy theorists, but also the ways users engage with misinformation. Yale University researchers have found that “outrage-evoking misinformation [is] associated with more engagement (likes, shares, replies) than both misinformation that is less outrage-evoking and outrage-evoking factually-accurate news” (my stunned emphasis added). Part of the problem, the American Psychological Association explains, is that people tend to let their guards down when confronted with claims that reinforce their preconceived notions (e.g., that traffickers are lurking around every corner). Yet, the APA adds, “people may share information they know is false to signal their political affiliation, disparage perceived opponents, or accrue social rewards.” Indeed, many commenters simply dismissed the fact that the Highland sex trafficking story had been debunked.
A delayed and inadequate correction
I was curious how much time and effort it would have taken for Inland Empire Pages to reach out to law enforcement and confirm that the Highland sex trafficking story was, in fact, fabricated. So, on Tuesday, July 25, I placed a call to Sergeant Christopher Gray, spokesperson for the San Bernardino Police Department (which has jurisdiction in that area of Highland), and — within an hour — he confirmed that there had been a "multi-agency, multi-location operation involving stolen guns and other items," but "no human trafficking."
Also on Tuesday, July 25, another popular IE-focused social media account, Inland Wire confirmed that Highland sex trafficking story was “erroneous” and that the bust was unrelated to human trafficking (presumably because so many readers had communicated with them about it).
Yet Inland Empire Pages did not issue a correction until the following evening — Wednesday, July 26. And when they did, it was a woefully inadequate one: they simply changed the description under the reel to read: “This is false information, confirmed by local officials.”
This “correction” — if you want to call it that — fails to meet even the basic expectations for journalistic corrections. As corrections expert Craig Silverman explains, effective news corrections should do the following:
Feel and write like a human;
Be clear about what was incorrect, and the correct information;
Provide due prominence;
Help the truth spread.
Inland Empire Pages’ “correction” attempt fails in each of these regards.
The revised description expresses no regret for having misinformed readers, nor does it commit to verify or attribute claims going forward.
The revised description does not explain what information was correct and incorrect — i.e., that there was a cartel-related bust in Highland, but that it did not involve human trafficking. Moreover, the revised description does not indicate that Inland Empire Pages got the story wrong in the first place. Simply including the word “correction” would have gone a long way in providing clarity.
In revising the reel’s description, Inland Empire Pages also gave its “correction” far less prominence than the original post. That's because when an Instagram post or reel's description is revised, those who previously saw it are not alerted of the change. And even if users do come across the updated reel, they still find the Highland sex trafficking story much more prominently displayed than the note that the story is false (Instagram is a visually-oriented medium, after all).
If Inland Empire Pages wanted to spread the truth, they would have — at the very least — published a new Instagram post (and accompanying IG story) explaining that the Highland sex trafficking story was false and correcting the record. Instead, by leaving up the offending reel and quietly revising its description, Inland Empire Pages effectively buried the truth about both the bust and their amplification of the story.
More than one reader argued that the offending post should be removed entirely.
News organizations are generally reluctant to fully retract stories where a correction will suffice. However, a compelling case for a retraction can be made here, as the Facebook screenshot so thoroughly misrepresented the facts about the Highland bust, and — as I explained above — it does real harm to anti-trafficking efforts. Yet if Inland Empire Pages did retract the story, they’d need to issue a prominent, informative retraction notice, and their lackluster “correction” doesn’t instill much confidence that they’d do so.
Journalistic standards at the IE’s popular community “pages”
With its 237,000 followers, Inland Empire Pages is one of a handful of popular, highly promotional, community-focused Instagram “pages” operating in California’s Inland Empire. Others include OnlyInTheIE (187,000 followers) Everything Inland Empire (133,000), Whats Up With Riverside (120,000), Inland Wire (83,500), and Riverside Matters (66,900 followers), among others. For a point of comparison, as of July 2023, three of the area’s daily newspapers — The San Bernardino Sun, Riverside Press-Enterprise, and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin — had a combined daily circulation of 75,235, according to the Southern California News Group’s media kit. And SCNG’s Inland Empire Report Instagram account has just over 2,200 followers.
Instagram accounts like these aren’t open community “groups” where any member can post (as is common on Facebook). Rather, they’re better understood as digital publishers that provide a mix of community-focused news, information, and promotional fare. At Inland Empire Pages, that editorial mix includes sponsored posts for area businesses, notices about upcoming events, and sensational crime and traffic reports. Sponsored posts seem to be the way most of these local “pages” generate revenue. At their website, Inland Empire Pages also maintains a directory of local businesses, which is where the term “pages” likely comes from (i.e., it’s akin to the Yellow Pages). The injury law firm, Pedram Law is the lead sponsor for several of these accounts, including Inland Empire Pages, San Bernardino Media News, and Everything Inland Empire — fitting given that these accounts frequently share videos of traffic incidents.
These accounts are vary considerably — from the sponsorship-focused OnlyInTheIE and Whats Up With Riverside to the somewhat more newsy Everything Inland Empire and Inland Wire. In a May 2024 Pew Research Center report, 52% of Americans told Pew Research Center that they get local news from online forums or groups — up 14% since 2018. Meanwhile, reliance on newspapers, TV, and radio for local news has declined. So, it’s fair to ask whether these popular IE pages are upholding the sort of journalistic standards that local communities and democracy require (particularly given their promotional logic, which incentivizes sensationalism). Local news research hasn’t delved into that question — at least not in the IE. But if Inland Empire Pages’ handling of the bogus Highland sex trafficking story is any indication, then a systematic, critical analysis of these pages is sorely needed.
I just subscribed. Thank you so much for debunking this outrageous story. The political ramifications of this type of garbage is unfortunately very real. I appreciate your efforts.