Facebook and The Rise of Fake News
So we’ve all seen it since most notably the 2016 Presidential election, but even before then in the events that unfolded in Ferguson Missouri and Baltimore Maryland. Fake news and Facebook are old pals, they can exist without each other, but rarely choose to. We have seen how the manipulation of data and news events can shift the tide of popular opinion and create new results that may not have been possible without the prevalence of fake news.
The Washington Post takes a deep dive on some of these fake news stories, photos and videos. Showing us the lengths people will go to turn an opinion on a topic or just gain notoriety. While the term “fake news” is often associated with President Trump that isn’t even slightly where the practice or term originated from. During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement we see a huge influx of stories about all the injustices and horrible things happening in our country, but how many of them were real? How many of these movements were real?
So how do we even know what is real anymore? Can we trust what we see on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even Youtube? The answer is no and let me show you why. This certainly isn’t new, but it is now almost impossible to catch at first glance.
There obviously was a much more simple time when fake news lived on the tabloid racks at the piggly wiggly. That time is long gone. Look at the two tweets below and you’ll see what I mean.
This is just one example of thousands across the internet. Facebook and Twitter have become a toxic wasteland of misinformation designed to push and pull people to one side or the other. This simple fact is largely the cause for much of the political and social division we have seen over the past few years.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cambridge-analytica-files
Take Cambridge Analytica for example, this “hack” that wasn’t a hack completely changed the way we look at social media as a whole and only furthered the divide in this country. Why though? Because the perception is altered based entirely on an algotrythnm and your personal views on the news. Fake news could very well be factual, but if it doesn’t fit your narrative you may write it off as fake or ignore it completely. You may even share it and caption it with a simple “This has to be fake” and the chain reaction continues. In reality, who is more at fault for fake news? Us, or the people making fake photos?
Because if we continue to share and spread news on social media without checking the facts, or sharing because it alligns with our opinions, we are doomed to continue a cycle of divison and misinformation and no one can fix that.
