one of the nation s foremost experts on student debt. this guy was everywhere. except an easy-to-visit location. [light music] alan? - hey, man, watch your step. - yes. what is this, an ice storm? - pretty much. welcome to wisconsin. north woods. - thank you very much. - i hope you like cats. - uh. - they re friendly. - oh, yeah, i can smell them. - you know, i sprayed lysol, but i don t think it worked. - so you ve basically devoted your life to this problem. - i m very sorry to say that appears to be how it turned out. it s become a 17-year ordeal, a journey. - after accruing hundreds of thousands in student debt, alan became obsessed with the issue. and before it was on the media s radar, he made raising awareness of it his life s work.
i sprayed lysol, but i don t think it worked. so you basically devoted your life to this problem. i m sorry to say that appears to be how it turned out. it has become a 17 year ordeal, a journey. after accruing hundreds of thousands in student debt, allen became obsessed with the issue and before it was on the medias radar, he made raising awareness of his life s work. [bell ringing] but it turns out, trying to change an entire financial system can be a lonely fight. is this your family? this is my family, yap. were they aware of the work you are doing? yes. i like thing my parents instilled in me the spirit of the happy warrior. keep my chin up during some of the low times during this battle. what would you say to this kid, as you look at this younger version of yourself? that s actually my brother.
- i m very sorry to say that appears to be how it turned out. it s become a 17-year ordeal, a journey. - after accruing hundreds of thousands in student debt, alan became obsessed with the issue. and before it was on the media s radar, he made raising awareness of it his life s work. but it turns out, trying to change an entire financial system can be a lonely fight. this is your family? - this is my family. yep. - were they aware of the work you were doing? your parents? - yeah. i like to think my parents instilled in me the spirit of the happy warrior. it helps me keep my chin up during some of the low times during this battle. - what would you say to this kid as you look at this younger version of yourself? - oh, that s actually my brother, believe it or not. - oh, okay. that s you? - uh, that s also my brother. - alan s devotion to this issue meant giving up a lot.
were stories about the ebola crisis, but they weren t real stories. here s how the verge put it back in 2014. quote, there s a scary story bouncing around facebook accruing hundreds of thousands of likes. the story says that the small town of purdon, texas, has been quarantined after a family of five there was diagnosed with ebola. now, at the time the verge reported on this in october 2014, five years ago, that story was shared 340,000 times on facebook. i mean, the ebola crisis was a real thing, purdon, texas, is a real town. there was no family of five that had come down with ebola.
back in 2014, a website called the verge ran this story about the ebola crisis. this was at a time when the ebola crisis in africa and the international worries about the spread of ebola, some real panic about the ability of modern medicine to responsibly handle active cases of ebola, it was really at its height. what the verge reported on was a number of stories that were suddenly appearing on social media, mostly on facebook, that were stories about the ebola crisis, but they weren t real stories. here s how the verge put it back in 2014. quote, there s a scary story bouncing around facebook accruing hundreds of thousands of likes. the story says that the small town of purdon, texas, has been quarantined after a family of five there was diagnosed with ebola.