Reading 10: Fake News
Fake News is a type of journalism or propaganda that deliberately presents incorrect information using online or social media. In general, the goal of Fake News is to negatively affect a person, corporation, or entity with the hopes of bettering the position of a competitor. This kind of Fake News, in my opinion, is dangerous, as it can be used to falsely manipulate the way people feel and think. Another kind of Fake News is presenting an outlandish headline that will act as click bait. This kind I just find to be flat-out annoying. Luckily for myself, I only really follow my friends and Tasty on social media platforms, so I don’t have to deal with Fake News much. Every now and then, one of my friends will share some Fake News article, and I’ll usually just ignore it.
Personally, I believe social media platform providers have a responsibility to make sure that the information being shared on their platforms is not Fake News, and thus I am comfortable with them regulating Fake News. However, rather than censor it and remove it from news feeds entirely, I believe they should just tag in, warning that the article could possibly contain Fake News and alerting the user that their may be false content within the article. This way, social media platform providers cannot simply block certain media by claiming that it is Fake News. I believe content aggregators have similar responsibilities as social media platform providers, as they should also warn about the possibility of Fake News, but not be able to block it for any personal agendas. Until something like this can be done (and even after it is done, frankly), it would be wise of people to get their news from more reputable sources, such as online newspapers. I agree with Snowden in this respect, as people rely too heavily on social media to get their news when virtually anyone can post virtually anything on social media.
I believe Fake News played a decently significant role in the 2016 election, as I definitely believe Fake News stories such as “The Pope endorses Donald Trump” and “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment murder-suicide” swayed votes from one side to the other. I’m certainly not saying that Fake News won the election for Trump, but the presentation of false information on social media certainly won the Trump campaign votes that they would not have had otherwise. I believe that the current focus on Fake News is definitely warranted, whether in the context of the election or just in general. People should never be allowed to influence others using deliberately false information, and thus when this occurs, it is necessary to work on measures to prevent people from orchestrating this articles or to warn the readers that the information may be false.
In my daily life, I get a majority of my news from social media, though most of it is in regards to sports. If I ever read an article that influences the way I think about an important topic (such as politics) on social media, I always try to research the topic on more trusted platforms to make sure the information I’m getting is valid. In the past I believe I may have been living in an echo chamber, but lately I have begun to subscribe to news sources that differ from the way I think in order to diversify the news I was receiving. This has worked well, as I have begun to think more about multiple sides of existing issues that have been in the news lately.
Despite all the negativity surrounding Fake News recently, I do believe truth has a chance in our possible “post-fact” world, as long as readers put in the time to do research and fact-check after reading a possibly controversial article. Unfortunately, however, that is a tall order, and many people today trust social media far more than they should.
