Local news is changing. So are the risks.

Driving the news: Police have noticed an increase in "citizen-led social media accounts that publish quick snippets of video, information they've heard, or things they have seen on other accounts," police spokesperson Ashley Nicholes told Axios.

• "Sometimes they do not verify information before posting, particularly as it relates to public safety information, and that can be dangerous."

State of play: More than half of adults said they sometimes or often get their news from social media, according to a recent Pew study, and experts told Axios that means fewer guardrails on accuracy.

• In a Pew study last year, 31% of respondents under 30 said social media is the first place they turn for more information about breaking news.

Zoom in: Nicholes pointed to discoversandiego.us, wtf.san.diego and east_village_doers as among the repeat local offenders getting things wrong.

• They have a combined 80K followers on Instagram.

Cases in point: This post from east_village_doers that said E3 Civic High School students had "a murder and active shooter situation on their campus" last December.

• The high school sits inside the downtown library, and there was a deadly shooting outside the library.
• But it was not an active-shooter attack on the school.

A discoversandiego.us post in July identified the wrong person in the video of a man kicking a sea lion in La Jolla.

• A different person later pleaded guilty.

This September wtf.san.diego post said a North Park "porn emporium" was "raided" and shots were fired.

• The store wasn't being raided. Instead, a suspect ran inside it while fleeing from police, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

The other side: Axios reached out to the three accounts singled out by police, but only east_village_doers agreed to answer questions.

• The responder declined to provide their name, but wrote to Axios that the account is born out of frustration with police, politicians and the media for not doing enough to help with the "deplorable, dystopian, almost post-apocalyptic conditions" in the East Village, including drug use, homelessness and crime.

How it works: East_village_doers is run by a group of people in East Village, the responder said.

• "Neighbors communicate through texts, Facebook and Instagram, sharing what they see, what they've reported and what's happening on their blocks," they said.

Most of what they post is witnessed firsthand, they said.

• "For serious incidents, we try to confirm what we can," they said. "We're neighbors, not journalists, but if we post something that turns out to be wrong, we'll own it and correct it."
• Police information is also sometimes wrong, they added.
• "If the police ever exited their vehicles and walked the sidewalks they might have a better perspective," they said.

Between the lines: Traditional media outlets get things wrong, too. After the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego in May, social media and news media misidentified one of the suspects.

• Police posted the correct suspect's name on their website, but Nicholes said they don't have time to constantly monitor social media for accuracy.

Yes, but: Not everyone who follows the accounts always takes them seriously.

• "I absolutely do not believe everything they post," Khalid Alexander told Axios of wtf.san.diego, which he follows. "It can be entertaining and sometimes informative. But I don't think they are shooting for the gold standard in journalism."

The big picture: These accounts have flourished as newsrooms across San Diego are shrinking and supporters say they can help fill the gap by covering things on the ground that are otherwise missed.

These accounts are like a vomitorium, Brian Spitzberg, professor emeritus at SDSU's School of Communication, told Axios.

• "Not a room where people go to vomit, but an exit from an arena where people pour out," he said. "It's where whatever is on their mind is just pouring out."

As more people get news from social media, he said it's important to check anything you see against multiple sources.

• But "in the attention economy, people are not very prone to do that, and the research shows that the vast majority of people don't," he said.

Tell us, do you get news from social media? How do you check what you see? Email us at [email protected].