Category: Fake News

Persuasive Essay: Is Fake News a Result of False Information and Distortion of Facts

Introduction

Fake news is a much larger conversation than just assuming is just a few false stories. Some stories created as fake news even have a little bit of the truth in them but lack any contextualizing details. These stories may not even include any verifiable facts or trusted sources. Some of these stories may also include basic verifiable facts but are often written using language that can be deliberately inflammatory to cause panic and they leave out pertinent details or only presents only one viewpoint that they most agree with or push for their benefit. This is biased when you look at a story, it could very well have many viewpoints if the people had all of the information concerning a story that doesn’t have a bias in it from the distributor of the fake news.

‘Fake news’ exists within a larger ecosystem of misinformation and disinformation. It is mostly aimed to mislead people and usually tarnishes the reputations of people or organizations or maybe even just causes panic. Where and how fake news can be created and distributed as true or real news is important to know to better understand how much of a big effect fake news make and also the number of people that fake news because they think the source of the news is credible. This is another problem on its own which has a lot of factors. This paper will focus on what fake news is, where it comes from and how it gets distributed, and who benefits from it. Also, we will look at the effects fake news has on our lives.

What is “Fake news”?

DefinitionFake news is a term that has come to mean various things to various individuals. At its center, we are characterizing ‘fake news’ as those reports that are bogus and untrue and the actual story is created, with no evident realities, no verifiable facts, no actual sources or quotes or statements from people of which the information is supposed to be from or about nor people close to the entity to verify anything that is being reported as actual news.

Here and there these accounts might be purposeful publicity that is deliberately intended to deceive the people or might be planned as ‘misleading content’ composed for financial motivators like for example, the author that reports the fake news benefits on the number of individuals who click on the story as it is aimed to generate traffic to the story. As of late, fake news reports have multiplied using web-based media like social media, to some degree since they are so effectively and immediately shared on the web. However, it is said that the term “Fake news” does not have a fixed definition. It has been applied on a broader scale to include any type of false information reported which includes unintentional and unconscious mechanisms, and also by high-profile individuals to apply to any news unfavorable to his or their perspectives.

What does it mean to be Misinformed or misinformed?

Misinforming is when false or inaccurate information is mistakenly or inadvertently created or spread when the intent is not to deceive. Disinforming is when false information is spread to deliberately created to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. So most Fake news falls under Disinformation as It is false stories usually with a sort of bias or personal gain. Any publications intentionally engaging in creating or distributing false or inaccurate information as real and truthful information can be considered misinformation sites.

In the Ecosystem of misinformation and disinformation, there are different types of misinformation and disinformation which I’ll be going through below. Claire Wardle of First Draft News was the one that created this helpful list of misinformation and disinformation types. There are 7 types of misinformation and disinformation:

1. Satire or Parody – No intention to cause harm but has the potential to fool people
2. Misleading content – Misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual
3. Imposter content – When genuine sources are impersonated
4. Fabricated content – New content is 100% false and designed to deceive and do harm
5. False connection – When headlines, visuals, or captions don’t support the content
6. False context – When genuine content is shared with false contextual information
7. Manipulated content – When genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive or twist the truth

The reason why these misinformation or disinformation sites are created and distributed as real news varies starting with one misinformation or disinformation site and then onto the next one, and is generally subject to their proprietor’s inspirations. The main point of a large portion of the misinformation or disinformation sites found on the web is to make their owners cash. These sites use advertising on social media and in any event they even do crypto mining through your browser to adapt the traffic coordinated to the site to get as many people to view the story and better yet, believe everything written because they will be given the impression that the information to authentic.

The electrifying nature and stun factor of most phony reports guarantee that the destinations get a great deal of footing via web-based media. Less oftentimes, misinformation or disinformation sites are only there for the sole purpose of driving political Agendas. They usually serve to occupy, distract, disparage, vilify, or even vindicate explicit political interests. CITATION New l 1033 (News24, n.d.)Where does fake news come from? The creation of misinformation and disinformation is directly related to who the writer of the information is and also considering all sorts of different reasons why fake news is created to do.

According to libraries’ research guides, the technological ease of copying, pasting, clicking, and sharing content online has made it easy for these types of articles to thrive and multiply in a much quicker way. CITATION MLi21 l 1033 (MLibraries, 2021). In some cases, Fake news articles are created and designed to provoke an emotional response from people and placed on certain sites to entice readers into sharing them widely using their social media to distribute those fake news articles. In other cases, fake news articles may be generated and disseminated by a computer algorithm that is designed to act like people sharing information but can do so quickly and automatically.

So, the authors may be anyone from:

• A person that wants to either make a point of their own opinion or entertain you, or both
• Someone who wants to make money, regardless of the content of the article. for example, teenagers that create fake news websites for financial benefits.
• Poor or untrained journalists that have pressures of the 24-hour news cycles, as well as the explosion of news sites, may contribute to shoddy writing that doesn’t follow professional journalistic standards or journalistic ethics
• People that want to influence political beliefs and policymakers

In its purest form, fake news can be completely made up and manipulated by creating a resemblance of credible journalism and attracting and generating traffic for maximum attention, and with that, it helps with advertising revenue. Examples include Transgender tampons now on the market, Pope Francis at the White House: Koran and Holy Bible are the same, U2’s Bono rescued during terror attack, and issuing sick messages to victims. These Stories were or let me say “are” hosted on websites that are often followed design conventions of online news media with anodyne titles such as “Civic Tribune” and “Life Event Web” to give stories a false sense of legitimacy to the readers and the stories are advertised on social media to draw as many readers to the stories and generate as much exposure to the stories as possible. With each click on the fake news story created and advertised, it comes with a lot of profit. A man is running a string of fake news sites from Los Angeles who told National Public Radio that he as much as $30,000 every month from advertising fake news stories that Rewa with the highest traffic through social media advertising of those false stories. There are more than 100 pro-Trump fake news websites created and run by teenagers in small towns.

What is being done to help tell if the information is genuine or fake news? Facebook, an essential driver of traffic to distributions, experienced harsh criticism toward the end of last year for permitting the advancement of fake news destinations that arrangement in paranoid notions instead of realities. Some Facebook representatives even purportedly revolted and assumed control over the issue before the organization found ways to decrease Fake news. Both Facebook and Google have reacted by removing these destinations of their promoting organizations and in any case, making their accounts harder to discover

Before long, Facebook will hail accounts of problematic authenticity with a statement that says “Disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers”. There are three Google Chrome plugins and one just delivered by Record that do comparatively as you browse the web. Be that as it may, Facebook’s methodology has weaknesses and no rundown can at any point be finished. You can’t turn out badly by focusing on outlets known to be genuine and perusing a great deal of them. On the off chance that it is distributed on the Watchman only for instance it might well not be news, yet it will not be phony information.

Melissa Zimdars, a partner educator of correspondence and media at Merrimack School in Massachusetts, gathered this rundown of sites that either deliberately distributes bogus data or are generally totally temperamental, separated by class, and distributed an accommodating rundown of tips for dissecting news sources.

In case you don’t know whether a site is genuine, search for any warnings in its space name, for example, ‘.com.co’, and its “About Us” area. Google the wellsprings of any statements or figures given in the story most phony news don’t have either, an admonition sign in itself. On the off chance that the primary you’ve known about a specific occasion is from a site you’ve never known about, there might be an explanation. Be doubtful of tales about Trump, Clinton, the Pope, Kim Kardashian, and Justin Bieber, and especially of anecdotes about any of them vowing loyalty to Isis. Have confidence, if Bieber promises devotion to Isis, the traditional press will cover it.

Also please note that obviously, ‘genuine news’ news sources and writers in some cases commit errors, including us at the Daily Dot. What’s more, we issue redresses and assume liability for those mix-ups when we do. Fake news outlets never put forth any such attempts toward correcting and regularly designing anecdotal stories, which is the thing that places them in an alternate class. Further, some fake news outlets especially government-controlled news sources generally distribute real news yet blend in some untrue stories for publicity purposes.

Conclusion

Looking at what fake news is, who creates them? Why did they create them? and how they spread shows how much of an effect fake news has in our society. The issue surrounding fake news is most people have no way of telling if the stories are fake news or not because sometimes genuine news outlets publish such news. So even trusted sources can misinform people. Also, even though some websites and social media outlets try to minimize fake news, It is not enough to prevent fake news as a whole.

What I’ve also gathered is that most conspiracy theories are also spread through fake news and this creates a lot of traffic to these stories and the next thing you know, people are thinking is real news because there may be a smudge of truth in the fake news article. People don’t see a difference between fake news and real news anymore. This on its own creates trust issues, and this only applies to the few people who are very well aware of fake news. There will even be trust issues when it comes to genuine news. People end up not trusting real news because they wonder if the narrative of the story is not being spined for alternate purposes that are not known about.

I believe it will continue to be hard to tell if articles are real or fake news. More needs to be done to prevent these issues. Also, people need to try by all means to check for signs of the story being fake news or at least try to verify themselves if something is true or not, rather than just believing anything they see online and spreading it. Also, there needs to be repercussions for people or entities that intentionally publish fake news, maybe this might help limit them.

References

1. Bible Realities, 2013. Bible Realities. [Online] Available at HTTP: bible realities.com church-truths-vs-apostasycatholic-church popes-activities-2pope-Francis-at-white-house-koran-and-holy-bible-are-the-same
2. Couts, A., 2021. Daily Dot. [Online] Available at https:www.dailydot.comdebugfake-news-sites-list-facebook[Accessed 14 June 2021].
3. Longmire, B., 2016. Express. [Online] Available at https:www.express.co.ukcelebrity-news690261U2-Bono-rescued-police-Bastille-Day-terror-attack-Nice
4. libraries, 2021. MLibraries. [Online] Available at https: guides.lib.umich.edufakenews[Accessed 12 June 2021].
5. News24, n.d. News24. [Online] Available at https: exposed.news24.com what-is-fake-news
6. Patton, H., 2015. Daily Stormer. [Online] Available at https: daily stormer. transgender-tampons-hit-the-market
7. Silverman, C., 2016. Buzz Feed News. [Online] Available at https:www.buzzfeednews.comarticlecraigsilvermanhow-Macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinform
8. Sydell, L., 2016. All Tech Considered. [Online] Available at https:www.npr.orgsectionsalltechconsidered20161123503146770npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs
9. The Guardian, 2016. The Guardian. [Online] Available at: https:www.theguardian.commedia
10. Wardle, C., 2017. First Draft. [Online] Available at https: first draft news.orgarticlesfake-news-complicated[Accessed 16 February 2017].
11. wikipedia, 2017. Wikipedia. [Online] Available at https: en. Wikipedia.orgwikiFake_news

Mocha Uson Blog and the Prevalence of Facebook Fake News: Argumentative Thesis

Abstract

The essay discusses the pervasiveness of fake news on Facebook as well as the role of the Mocha Uson Blog. The author discussed how Facebook fake news is viewed in both the international and Philippine setting and the perceptions of netizens therewith. The essay also showed the biography and career of Mocha Uson, and how Mocha Uson Blog affected the social platform.

The author analyzed the Mocha Uson Blog and the mainstream media news outlet using the Gratification Theory (UGT) of Katz, Blumber & Gurevitch, and the Agenda Setting Theory of Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw.

Introduction

Technology plays a great role in delivering news and information to the public especially the millennials and Generation Z. The revolution in telecommunication started in the early 20th century with the development pioneered by radio communication.

The prevalence of online media in social internet platforms gained popularity in recent years since print media (although arguably) continues to lose its vigor in the industry and thus some say it may actually die in the coming years.

However, one of the backlashes of this technological advancement in communication lies with the ubiquity of fake news and the effect thereof on the country and its citizenry.

According to Ford (2014) with the evolution of technology, people had gained access to information online, which let the public broaden their political, social, and economic freedom. In this age, social media dominates the modern form of communication. Initially, social media was formed to connect people across the globe. However, as time passed, its use broaden in scale.

Social and Mainstream Media, an Overview

According to the results of the study made by (S., Chung, Tsay-Vogel, & Kim, 2015), people rely more on new media channels as their primary source of information than the traditional way of news media. However, it has been found that news as a reliable source depends on the person; news consumers disregarded the idea that social media is a reputable source, but not all of them, younger people, tend to find it reliable while older consumers do not (Pew Research Center, 2016).

Younger internet users found Facebook as a dependable media source and prefer this medium for it also allows the users to exchange ideas as well as lets them criticize the news that is posted online (Winter, Brückner, & Krämer, 2015). As of today, Facebook is the widely used social media in the Philippines and is broadly known as an information disseminator. Regardless of gender and age, most Filipinos have their account. Internet users are not fond of visiting news media sites and buying newspapers, hence they rely mostly on news found in social media, especially on Facebook.

Mocha Uson Blog

Margaux Justiniano Uson, known as Mocha Uson was born in Dagupan, Philippines to the late Oscar Uson, a Regional Trial Court Judge, and Estrellita Uson, a pediatrician. After graduation, she studied medicine at the University of Santo Tomas but later left and dropped out to pursue a modeling and music career and later founded the Mocha Girls.

Mocha became infamous for her sex-related blogs which hit millions of views before the presidential campaign began. However, during the 2016 Philippine presidential elections, her blog shifted more to the campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte and his war on drugs. She has over 5 million Facebook followers as of writing.

Her blog also targeted newsgroups such as ABS-CBN, GMA, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and Rappler. She also criticized political personalities like Vice President Leni Robredo, Senator Trillanes, and Senator de Lima.

Due to her wide reach and influence, in August of 2016, she was allegedly appointed by the Bureau of Customs as social media consultant which she later denied.

The Bureau of Customs issued an official denial on its Twitter account stating: ‘Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon will not appoint Mocha Uson as BOC Social Media Consultant but she can write articles about BOC on her blog” (Upclosed, 2017).

On May 8, 2017, Uson was officially appointed by the President of the Philippines himself as the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) assistant secretary.

However, Uson resigned from her post as assistant secretary as there were several issues thrown during her term.

Fake News: The Philosophical Standpoint

According to Gelfert (2018), fake news is a species of disinformation. Like fake news, disinformation derives from a prior, philosophically more “respectable” notion: the notion of information, which in recent years has led to burgeoning literature in the philosophy of information (Florida 2011).

The term fake news has gained considerable attention from experts and has been subjected to extensive conceptual analysis. Literally speaking, as disinformation is a species of information so is fake news, a form of news. However, this may create a notion of the logical fallacy of false equivalence as to the lowest and highest forms.

Fake news is a deliberate presentation of (typically) false or misleading claims as news, where these are misleading by design (Gelfert, 2018).

Fake news has always been there even before, however, the only difference now is it replicates and travels faster than how it used to be. Agenda-setting theory in communication plays a great part in explaining the influence of fake news on social media platforms.

Naively accepting reports without further analysis comes dangerously close to committing the fallacy of the argumentum ad verecundiam (i.e., the fallacy of submitting to a potentially irrelevant authority); trust in putative epistemic authorities is by necessity provisional, and basic critical questions—concerning the credibility of the source, its reliability, motives, interests, consistency and track record—should never be entirely suppressed (Walton, 1997). The abundance of (tentative) definitions that have been floated has led some to worry that the heterogeneity of the term ‘fake news’ results in it becoming “a catch-all term with multiple definitions” (Lilleker, 2017). Others have urged journalists, in particular, to “stop calling everything ‘fake news’” (Oremus, 2016).

Fake News: The Media Standpoint

Media practitioners refer to the phrase fake news as an information disorder, which consists of three categories namely: 1) misinformation; 2) disinformation; and 3) mal-information, in contrast to the above more philosophical standpoint, which only refers to fake news as a species of disinformation.

According to Wardle and Derakhshan, fake news conflates two notions: misinformation and disinformation. It can be helpful, however, to propose that misinformation is information that is false, but the person who is disseminating it believes that it is true. Disinformation is information that is false, and the person who is disseminating it knows it is false. It is a deliberate, intentional lie, and points to people being actively disinformed by malicious actors. A third category could be termed mal-information; information, that is based on reality, but used to inflict harm on a person, organization, or country (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2018).

It is evident that this information disorder was taken advantage of in many electoral processes in different countries. These politicians weaponized the ignorance of the people to fuel their wrongful motives.

Powerful new technology makes the manipulation and fabrication of content simple, and social networks dramatically amplify falsehoods peddled by States, populists, politicians, and dishonest corporate entities, as they are shared by uncritical publics. The platforms have become fertile ground for computational propaganda, ‘trolling and’ ‘troll armies’; ‘sock-puppet’ networks’, and ‘spoofers’. Then, there is the arrival of profiteering ‘troll farms’ around elections (Posetti & Ireton, 2018).

Fake News in the Philippines

Fighting fake news may seem like fighting in World War 2 with a blindfold. We do not know our enemies who hide behind their computers attacking the ignorant and confusing the educated. Unless you have some powerful computers and a geeky mind, you may be able to track these trolls lurking around the internet.

Regulation is one route many countries take to resolve the issue of fake news. However, advocates of freedom of speech, warn that by doing so may harm the open engagement that the modernity of technology has enabled. Especially, if an authoritarian is seated as the highest official of the land, who can use his/her power to manipulate and decide what is fake and what is not in regard to criticism of their performance.

In the Philippines, Social Weather Stations (SWS) said that of the 42 percent or at least 44 million Filipinos who use the internet on a daily basis, at least 29 million said in March 2018 that fake news is a serious problem. It also revealed that 60 percent of adult Filipinos believe that the problem of fake news in mass media is serious (29 percent very serious, and 31 percent somewhat serious (Inquirer, 2018).

Recently, social media has been plagued with issues of fake news. Even the big news outlets are accused of false reports and misleading headlines.

Mocha Uson has been alleged by many netizens to be the main purveyor of fake news in the Philippines. Rappler’s Pia Ranada is one of the fervent critics of the administration including Mocha’s alleged fake news propaganda in her blog. However, Uson disagreed, telling her millions of followers of her Facebook blog that Rappler has been publishing ‘fake news” (GMA News Online, 2018). Uson, also insisted that her blog is based on the truth that the media does not want to show the public. Here, we can see how agenda-setting theory takes place.

Bernard Cohen (1963) stated: “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”

Facebook: a Medium of Fake News Propaganda

Since the 2016 US presidential election, social network sites have acknowledged the issue of fake news as well as their roles in spreading it. Companies like Facebook and Twitter have made efforts to address the problem, instituting a number of measures aimed at stemming the spread of misinformation and disincentivizing those that spread it But how useful have those efforts been? Researchers at Stanford University and New York University say at least in Facebook’s case, they may be working (Locklear, 2018).

Facebook has been very ardent in facing the issues of fake news as the platform has been constantly branded to be the home of fake news propaganda. The Philippines, where most people have a Facebook account, has been bombarded with issues of fake news, especially with the current administration.

The prevalence of fake news as demonstrated by the study of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) has been a huge fuss, especially on Facebook. There has been many online threads and discussion as to whether a page or an account is a fake news propagandist or not. Netizens often refer to the people behind the scheme as “trolls”.

The administrators of the social media giant have recently taken down many pages and groups on Facebook as it began to implement its strict compliance against the propagation of fake news.

However, the identification of a site as fake news draws a lot of flak from netizens. One Facebook comment read that the determination of the sites as fake news is subjective and prone to biases.

The fake news sites blocked by Facebook were among those included in the list of fake news websites earlier identified by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (The Philippine Star, 2018).

Facebook announced that it tapped Vera Files and Rappler for a third-party fact-checking program in the Philippines to address the spread of false news among Filipino users of the social media platform (The Philippine Star, 2018).

Conclusion

Following the theory set forth by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972, setting the agenda for a specific audience, the netizens in this case, affects greatly on how people perceive things, especially in the political arena. The author also believes that the prevalence of fake news in the Philippines is very rampant as evidenced by the results of surveys shown above.

Mocha Uson Blog, although branded by many netizens as a fake news propagandist due to several errors in her posts, and writing, is not considered fake news because of the following:

1. Mocha Uson Blog is still existing on Facebook with millions of followers.
2. Rappler, given the duty to be a third-party fact-checking by Facebook, didn’t list Mocha’s blog as fake news despite the conflict between both parties as mentioned in the essay.

Freedom of speech is a right of every citizen. However, it should be regulated so as not to be abused. Partisanship – even the rabid type – is not a crime. No blog should thus be suspended for being partisan. Fake accounts and paid troll comments must be taken down but (real) people and groups must be allowed to speak (Abao, 2016).

In the same way, this privilege given to Mocha Uson is applicable even to the critics of the administration.

Pointing out the Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) of Katz, Blumber & Gurevitch in 1974, the theory posits that the receiver takes an active role in selecting a medium, interpreting and thenceforth integrating it into their lives. It holds the audience responsible for the choice of their medium to gratify themselves. Hence, the prevalence of fake news and the Mocha Uson blog solely depends on the choice of news outlet netizens read. After choosing the medium to gratify themselves, the agenda-setting theory takes place when the chosen medium poses the agenda in the sense that it may not exactly tell you what to think, but it may tell you what to think about and how important it is (McCombs, 2003).

References

1. Abao, C. V. (2016, November 5). The curious case of the Mocha Uson blog. Retrieved from www.rappler.com: https://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/151250-curious-case-mocha-uson-blog
2. BBG Communications. (2013, March 24). BBG Communications Corp. Retrieved from BBG Communications Corp: http://www.bbgcommunicationscorp.com/web-based-communications/article/18.php
3. Gelfert, A. (2018). Fake News: A Definition. Informal Logic, 85-117.
4. GMA News Online. (2018, February 20). GMA News Online. Retrieved from GMA News Online: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/644080/mocha-uson-to-rappler-rsquo-s-pia-ranada-lsquo-press-freedom-na-kaagad-rsquo/story/
5. Inquirer. (2018, June 12). Inquirer. Retrieved from Inquirer: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/999925/sws-majority-of-filipino-netizens-say-fake-news-is-prevalent-on-internet
6. Lilleker, D. G. (2017). Evidence to the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee ‘Fake news’ inquiry presented by the Faculty for Media & Communication. Bournemouth University.
7. Locklear, M. (2018, September 14). Researchers say Facebook’s anti-fake news efforts might be working. Retrieved from www.engadget.com: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/14/facebook-fake-news-efforts-working/
8. McCombs, M. (2003). The Agenda-Setting Role of the Mass Media in the Shaping of Public Opinion.
9. Oremus, W. (2016). Stop calling everything fake news. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/12/st
10. Posetti, J., & Ireton, C. (2018). Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation. UNESCO. 2018.
11. Rappler. (2018, October 3). Rappler. Retrieved from Rappler: https://www.rappler.com/nation/213380-mocha-uson-resigns-from-pcoo-october-2018
12. S., D., Chung, D. S., Tsay-Vogel, M., & Kim, Y. S. (2015). Who’s Following Twitter? Coverage of the Microblogging Phenomenon by U.S. Cable News Networks. International Journal of Communication.
13. The Philippine Star. (2018, April 16). Facebook cracks down on Philippines fake news sites. Retrieved from www.philstar.com: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/04/16/1806377/facebook-cracks-down-philippines-fake-news-sites
14. UNESCO. (2009). Freedom of Expression, Access to Information, and Empowerment of People. 5.
15. Up close. (2017). Up close. Retrieved from https://upclosed.com/people/mocha-uson/
16. Walton, D. (1997). Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority. Pennsylvania: University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
17. Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2018). Thinking about ‘information disorder’: formats of misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information. Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation.
18. Winter, S., Brückner, C., & Krämer , N. C. (2015). Running head: They Came, They Liked, They Commented: Social Influence on Facebook News Channels. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Thesis on Fake News in Social Media

Abstract

Facebook has reached 2.38 billion active users around the globe and is one of the biggest social media websites people do rely on the information and news published on social media websites because the trend of reading news, listening radio, and watching TV became old and new generation completely adopted the new versions of media without giving chance to old mediums. As the breaking news unfolds people increasingly rely on social media to stay abreast of the latest updates. The use of social media in such situations comes with the caveat that new information being released piecemeal may encourage rumors, many of which remain unverified long after their point of release. Little is known, however, about the dynamics of the life cycle of a social media rumor. This type of news ruins the main purpose of spreading the news as the media badly discourages it. In this research paper we would discuss the issues of fake news on Facebook as they change the viewpoints of people and their decision as well the biggest example was seen during the US election in 2016 when Donald.j.Trump and Henry Clinton used social media for their election campaign and spread fake news around the world and that exactly worked in the favor of trump later who became the president of USA. So it was very important to study the behavior of people using Facebook that how they believe in news on social media so easily and make decisions according to the information.

Introduction

Pakistan’s democracy has been repeatedly buffeted by changes in media technology. In the 20th century, cheap newsprint and improved presses allowed partisan newspapers to expand their reach dramatically. Many have argued that the effectiveness of the press as a check on power was significantly compromised. In the 20th and early 21st century, as radio and then television became dominant, observers worried that these new platforms would reduce substantive policy debates to sound bites, privilege charismatic or “telegenic” candidates over those who might have more ability to lead but are less polished, and concentrate power in the hands of a few large corporations. In the early 2000s, the growth of online news prompted a new set of concerns, among them that excess diversity of viewpoints would make it easier for like-minded citizens to form “echo chambers” or “filter bubbles” where they would be insulated from contrary perspectives. Most recently, the focus of concern has shifted to social media. Social media platforms such as Facebook have a dramatically different structure than previous media technologies. Content can be relayed among users with no significant third-party filtering, fact-checking, or editorial judgment. An individual user with no track record or reputation can in some cases reach as many readers as the Jung group, ARY group, and so on.

Following the 2016 election in the USA and the 2018 election in Pakistan, a specific concern has been the effect of false stories and fake news, as it has been dubbed circulated on social media. Recent evidence shows that:

1. 62 percent of adults get news on social media
2. the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories
3. Many people who see fake news stories report that they believe them
4. the most discussed fake news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton

Putting these facts together, a number of commentators have suggested that Donald Trump would not have been elected president were it not for the influence of fake news (for example, see Parkinson 2016; Read 2016; Dewey 2016). Our goal in this paper is to offer a theoretical and empirical background to frame this debate. We begin by discussing the economics of fake news. We sketch a model of media markets in which firms gather and sell signals of a true state of the world to consumers who benefit from inferring that state. We conceptualize fake news as distorted signals uncorrelated with the truth. Fake news arises in equilibrium because it is cheaper to provide than precise signals because consumers cannot costlessly infer accuracy, and because consumers may enjoy part of the news. Fake news may generate utility for some consumers, but it also imposes private and social costs by making it more difficult for consumers to infer the truest ate of the world for example, by making it more difficult for voters to infer which electoral candidate they prefer.

We discuss the importance of social media relative to sources of political news and information. Referrals from social media accounted for a small share of traffic on mainstream news sites, but a much larger share for fake news sites. Trust in information accessed through social media is lower than trust in traditional outlets.

Definition and History

We define “fake news” to be news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false and could mislead readers. We focus on fake news articles that have political implications, with special attention to the 2016 US presidential elections. Our definition includes intentionally fabricated news articles, such as a widely shared article from the now-defunct website denverguardian.com with the headline, “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.” It also includes many articles that originate on satirical websites but could be misunderstood as factual, especially when viewed in isolation on Twitter or Facebook feeds. For example, in July 2016, the now-defunct website wtoe5news.com reported that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. The WTOE 5 News “About” page disclosed that it is “a fantasy news website. Most articles on wtoe5news.com are satire or pure fantasy,” but this disclaimer was not included in the article. The story was shared more than one million times on Facebook, and some people in our survey described below reported believing the headline.

Literature Review

Other studies present a more hopeful portrait, positing that youth have an interest in current events but find conventional newspapers and TV news boring (Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991, 1998; Costera Meijer, 2007; Livingstone, 2002; Raeymaeckers, 2004); difficult to understand (Raeymaeckers, 2004); and irrelevant to their lives (Barnhurst, 1998; Buckingham, 1999; Costera Meijer, 2003; Frola, 2006; McKee, 2005). Rather than interpreting low rates of news consumption as signs that youth are “tuned out” from the world of politics, Raeymaeckers (2004) concludes that news producers should use clearer language and provide greater background and contextualization of stories. Similarly, Costera Meijer (2007) argues that news organizations need to develop new quality standards that young (and all) people will not find boring. An emerging theme in the literature concerns the definition of “news.” For people who hold traditional ideas of what news is, young people do not appear to be interested in the news. However, for those with more flexible definitions of “news” and how it may be accessed, there is more optimism. A recent study of undergraduate university students found that “young people today are not necessarily uninformed, but rather they are differently informed” than previous generations, getting news via cell phone texts, email, social networking sites, and conversations with friends and family (Singer, Clark, & Monserrate, p. 26). In an “a la carte” model of news gathering, youth tend to know a little bit about a lot of subjects, researching topics of special interest in more detail. Costera Meijer (2007) observed similar youth strategies regarding TV news consumption, pointing out that what may look like youth inattention by older adult standards is a reflection of the younger generation’s comfort with monitoring multiple media sites simultaneously. She notes that youth feel at ease zapping from station to station and “snacking” on tidbits of news, gaining superficial knowledge of a broad variety of topics, while older people prefer in-depth knowledge about a smaller number of topics. Unlike older generations, accustomed to postponing their news needs until a fixed hour of the day, young people prefer to get news instantly whenever they want it (Costera Meijer, 2007). This latter group of research falls within the engaged youth paradigm, which emphasizes the empowerment of youth as agents and recognizes a new spectrum of civic actions occurring online and in other nontraditional arenas. As Bennett (2008) observes,

The dearth of young people in contemporary print and broadcast news audiences have been widely noted (Brown, 2005; Jones, 2008; Mindich, 2005; Patterson, 2007; Purcell et al., 2010) and scholars and news organizations are struggling to understand the phenomenon. Mindich contends that there has been a “generational shift” away from news, particularly political news. Noting that 80% of people below 30 do not read newspapers daily while 70% of older Americans do, and further noting that the median age of TV news viewers is 60, he foresees grave consequences for the future of democracy (Mindich, 2005). A study by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy echoes this concern, showing further decreases in youth news consumption and concluding that there is a “basis for pessimism about the future of news and young adults” (Patterson, 2007, p. 24). It also notes that when young adults and teens follow the news, they “are attracted disproportionately to stories that have little or no public affairs content” (Patterson, 2007, p. 16). These studies are representative of the disengaged youth paradigm (Bennett, 2008), which takes traditional civic actions such as voting and news consumption as the proper measures of a healthy democracy.

Most of the teens interviewed reported reading print newspapers “sometimes” (ranging from once a week to once a month), with fewer than 10% reading them daily. All those who reported reading a paper daily had parents who subscribed to daily papers. The remaining students who read newspapers did so at school, where they received free copies and were usually required to read them by teachers. Students who took public transportation read The Metro, a daily newspaper distributed free to commuters at subway stations. Most of the teens did not independently seek out television news but watched it “by accident” when flipping channels or when older family members happened to be watching it. Dylan, 18, explains, “As far as TV, I’m usually watching reality television or something like that, and then during the commercials, I’ll flip to CNN. That’s how I get my news. During the commercial breaks.” In keeping with other recent findings that the dry and predictable format of professional news alienates youth (Costera Meijer, 2007; UNICEF, 2005), the teens we interviewed found TV news boring, repetitive, and irrelevant to their daily lives:

Objectives

Our objective in this research is to find out that if Facebook actually leads its users to false information then what measurements would help to reduce the psychological impact on its users?

1. Which things lead to fake news and how people believe in fake news.
2. How fake spread so rapidly
3. If Facebook could not control the spreading of fake news how its users can identify the fake news and tell people about it?
4. How to verify news published on Facebook and create awareness

Hypothesis

People are too attached to social media so they easily believe in every news or story they saw on Facebook.

Extra usage of smartphones and distance from newspapers and TV took people away from authentic and verified news.

There were few pieces of research on this topic that conclude with the statement that people use to avoid using social media websites that were made for connectivity and entertainment not for serious issues like economics and politics.

The study would conclude with the statement of addiction to social media websites which provide a wide range of data and programs for different choices. And people do not want to get the news they just need entertainment which is why they were not returning to the mainstream media and newspapers.

Thesis Statement Regarding Fake News Solutions

Introduction

Today, journalism is under attack. The tensions between the responsibilities of journalists and the prerogatives of the government when dealing with issues of national security are exacerbated by a body politic fortified by partisan certitude, by technology designed to ferret out confidential sources, and by nation-states with hidden agendas. One of the most significant ethical challenges that are facing journalists today is the issue of fake news in addition to its use as a weapon of asymmetric warfare. The issue of fake news has, as a result, become a national threat to security especially in the field of media and journalism.

The recent electoral experience with foreign disinformation raises the question of the responsibilities vested in journalists, private firms, and the government to protect democracy from foreign political subversion through the dissemination of ‘fake news’ intended to affect political discourse or undermine national security. The field is professionally unprepared for this new reality. This paper explores fake news an ethical challenge facing journalism today, the forces driving fake news, and how citizens, journalists, and policymakers are addressing the issue by offering solutions for dealing with the problem.

Fake news is a tough problem to tackle. Its real-world impact and influence on public opinion have produced a variety of different harms, such as: tainting individual reputations; causing physical safety issues; eroding civic discourse; and, arguably, even eroding the democratic process. While its harmful effects seem apparent, ‘fake news’ itself is hard to define, and therefore challenging to identify, much less to proscribe. Fake news is generated by outlets that masquerade as actual media sites but promulgate false or misleading accounts designed to deceive the public. When these activities move from sporadic and haphazard to organized and systematic efforts, they become disinformation campaigns with the potential to disrupt campaigns and governance in entire countries

Forces driving fake news

Journalism is in a state of considerable flux as new digital platforms have unleashed innovative journalistic practices that enable novel forms of communication and greater global reach than at any point in human history. But on the other hand, fake news is accelerating and affecting the way individuals interpret daily developments. Driven by foreign actors, citizen journalism, and the proliferation of talk radio and cable news, many information systems have become more polarized and contentious, and there has been a steep decline in public trust in traditional journalism. Fake news and sophisticated disinformation campaigns are especially problematic in democratic systems, and there is a growing debate on how to address these issues without undermining the benefits of digital media. for purposes of maintaining an open, democratic system, it is essential that government, businesses, and consumers work together to solve these problems.

Another critical driver of fake news is that many people rely on online news. As a result, there is a high possibility f being fed with fake news that spread on many social media platforms. Also, research states that in India, nationalism is the driving force behind fake news. According to the research that was conducted, it was found that facts were less important to some than the emotional desire to bolster national identity. The study adds that distrust of mainstream news outlets pushed people to spread information from alternative sources, without attempting to verify it, in the belief that they were helping to spread the real story. People were also overly confident in their ability to spot fake news. In India, health scares are prominent among widely shared fake news stories, and many news consumers visit both credible and fake news sources without distinguishing between them.

In another case, technology is an enabler of fake news and a potential tool to combat it. It can be agreed that technology plays a vital role in the circulation of so-called fake news. Even though technology is an important tool for the dissemination of fake news it also offers methods to analyze their real impacts and tools with which fake news can be argued against and even, more or less democratically, stopped. The internet has dramatically changed how information and ideas are circulated. In general, these changes are for the better, and more content is created, which gives more consumers choices, and there is more convenient access to information, education, and other people. The change has also caused problems.

On the traditional internet gateways quality-controlled and fact-checked content before publishing is gone. This results not only in a freer exchange of ideas but also in the circulation of ideas that may be wrong and even harmful. The most powerful technology to disseminate ideas and information is social media technology, with services such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. They spread not only ‘good’ but also ‘bad’ ideas and have so far made little effort to make a distinction. Technology can also be used to improve the information that is circulating. A combination of artificial intelligence and human effort can re-create the effects of editing and quality control known in traditional media.

How journalists, citizens, and policymakers are addressing fake news

Journalists and policymakers have recently announced strategies that have included greater policing of actors that transparently misrepresent themselves on social media, improved systems for users to flag information they suspect to be false, and partnerships with third-party organizations to evaluate claims and make fact-checking reports available in order to help users make more informed decisions about sharing content they encounter.

Policymakers and journalists are promoting news literacy and responsible professional journalism in their societies. The news industry, on the other hand, is providing high-quality journalism to build public trust and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them. Technology companies are at the same time also investing heavily in tools that identify fake news, reduce financial incentives for those who profit from disinformation, and improve online accountability. Educational institutions are not left behind as they are assisting in informing people about news literacy as a high priority. Finally, individual citizens are following a diversity of news sources, and are being skeptical of what they are reading and watching.

Solutions or best practices for dealing with fake news

As media experts and journalists are pointing fingers at the culprits and causes of fake news, the focus of the debate has started to shift toward tools and regulations aimed at preventing hoax stories from spreading in the first place. Therefore, to begin dismantling the real-world effects of fake news, it is believed that four overarching principles can inform the solutions employed by the stakeholders of the news ecosystem. These principles include respect for freedom of expression, Accountability, Transparency, and Respect for Context. The solutions we provide, supported by these principles, will address to whom these Guidelines are directed; to what end; and by what means. There are also some recommendations like automatic news verification, citation standards, delivering corrections, changing visibility, and organizational collaboration. Each principle and proposal is aimed at players in the ecosystem to mitigate the harmful effects of fake news on the public.

However, the recommendations and practices suggested are not intended to eradicate the problems of fake news, but to diminish its effects, and prevent similar issues from developing in the future. By suggesting fundamental techniques that encourage digital literacy, the objective is to limit the spread of the most egregious forms of fake news, without censoring other forms of expression or designating any one entity as the arbiter of truth. However, given the complexity of the problem, some of the factors that allowed for the spread of fake news can only be partially addressed.

In the process of fighting the spread of fake news, algorithms should be used to fight algorithms. This is because algorithms are part of what spreads the fake news – yet false stories which become popular can be pushed out to new eyeballs by the software that runs social networks. But some programmers think computer code could also be part of the solution. Another solution can be incorporating digital literacy into school curriculums whereby people are taught how to spot fake news themselves.

Thesis Statement for Fake News: Analysis of Trump’s Presidential Elections

Fake news; to what degree did it help Trump during the presidential elections?

“So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great!” (Vox, 2018). Donald Trump, often characterized as a populist (Rice-Oxley & Kalia, 2018), is speaking here concerning fake news[footnoteRef:1] in a tweet that he posted on the 26th of March 2018. To illustrate why Trump has been characterized as a populist, Professor Susan Hunston (2017) stated the following: “Although his language, both in content and in style, is odd for a political leader, it is familiar to his audience. It is the true language of populism”. During the US presidential elections, fake news coming from different institutes might have influenced the outcome greatly (Chalfant, 2018). Not only could the national institutes have interfered in the elections, but Russia is also said to have actively intervened in the 2016 presidential elections as well (The Times of Israel, 2016). It is likely that if Russia has interfered, their tactics had at least three elements; online propaganda, hacking into and exposing political organizations and individuals’ emails, and targeting state elections systems. It is possible that their work has spread, and millions of Americans ended up unknowingly sharing the fake news and viewing the ads, which are illegal (The Washington Post, 2017). Trump did encourage the political hacking of Russia during his campaign: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails (from Clinton) that are missing” (BBC News, 2016). To emphasize the relevancy of this issue, up until this day a federal discussion is being held by the F.B.I. to investigate the effects of the possible intervention of Russia on the US presidential elections. A team of researchers from Ohio University even argue that all the inaccurate news was enough to swing the election in Trump’s favor (Chalfant, 2018). However, to what degree has fake news actually helped Trump? This essay will be explored to what extent fake news contributed to Trump’s advantage during the US presidential elections in 2016. In the paragraphs that follow, it will first be presented in what ways fake news has helped Trump during the elections and secondly how fake news worked against Trump. Afterward, an analysis will be held between these two perspectives. Lastly, the research question will be answered in the conclusion. Comment by Max van duivenboden: Source [1: news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). ]

Regarding the ways, fake news has helped Trump during the presidential elections. During the elections, a lot of fake news was shared across the United States. Many experts have concluded that it might have been pivotal for the election of Donald Trump as most discussed fake news stories tended to favor Trump over Hillary Clinton (Allcott & Gentzkow). One of the biggest sources of inaccurate news was Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, contradicted this and said it was ‘extremely unlikely’ fake news on Facebook had an impact on the election, while he boasted that Facebook was responsible for 2 million people registering to vote (Parkinson, 2016). All Facebook users in America are certain to have read multiple fake news articles. This could be derived from research that Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) had conducted with a database that consisted of 156 fake stories; out of those 156 articles 115 were pro-Trump and 41 pro-Clinton. All throughout the election, these fake stories, sometimes covered with parody, circulated throughout Facebook. Notable examples are: ‘The Pope Endorses Trump’, ‘Hillary Clinton bought $137 million in illegal arms’, and ‘The Clintons bought a $200 million house in the Maldives’ (Read, 2016). Alcott and Gentzkow’s (2017) results showed that these 156 stories combined were shared 38 million times, which translates into 760 million instances of a user clicking through and reading a fake news story; which means about three stories read per American adult. In addition, Guess, Nyhan, and Reifler (2018) found out that 27.4 % of American adults were confronted with a fake news article, 3 months prior to the elections. Guess et al. (2018) also concluded that the people saw an average of 5.45 fake news articles, with 5.00 being pro-Trump and only 0.45 pro-Clinton. To go deeper into details, Paul Horner, a 38-year-old impresario of a Facebook fake-news domain, has made his living off viral news hoaxes for several years (Dewey, 2016). But during the months of their campaign of Trump, he started to notice the fake-news ecosystem growing more crowded and exceedingly more influential. In March 2016, Trump’s son Eric and his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, even tweeted links to one of Horner’s disinformation articles (Dewey, 2016). In an interview with The Washington Post, Horner answered questions with the concern that his own fake news stories somehow helped Trump get elected: “I honestly feel people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything – they’ll post everything, believe everything” (P. Horner, personal communication, November 17, 2016). In terms of how fake news benefitted Trump, he also received a lot of international aid as Russia possibly interfered in the presidential elections in 2016. According to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment, the campaign was directed from the seat of power in Russia; Vladimir Putin (The Washington Post, 2017). The Russian’s online disinformation campaigns then sprawled over the social media companies Facebook, Twitter, and Google. With the help of automated social media accounts or bots, Russian operatives shared free and paid posts with millions of Americans (The Washington Post, 2017). To put this into perspective, statistics have shown that 1.4 million tweets, 80,000 Facebook posts, and more than 1100 YouTube videos were likely linked to Russian trolling activity during the times of the elections (CBS News, 2017).

So far, this essay has discussed in what ways fake news has helped Donald Trump during the presidential elections. The following section will discuss the manners in which fake news worked against Trump. Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro (2018) conducted research concerning the role of the Internet in the outcome of the 2016 elections. Boxell et al. (2018) compared trends in the Republican part of the vote between likely and unlikely internet users and between internet users and non-internet users. Data was used from the presidential election years 1996-2016 from the ANES, which is an American survey that poses different demographic and political questions. Boxell et al. (2018) used three main measures to identify the use of internet among the voters. Boxell et al.’s (2018) first measure, which referred to whether the voter had access to the Internet, came from a response to “Do you or anyone in this household use the Internet at any location?”. The second measure, which referred to whether the voter had seen any campaign news, had to do with the fact that voters had heard anything concerning the presidential campaign on the internet. The ultimate measure classified the voters in either the top or the bottom quartile referring to the predicted [image: ]internet use of these voters. Figure 1 on the right includes the results of Boxell et al.’s (2018) research. Thereby, figure 1 shows for all three measures the share of the voting respondents that voted for the Republican candidate in all elections. Figure 1 reveals that there has been a gradual increase in the proportion of the least-active online voters over the last couple of years. Thus, all three graphs show that Trump performed the best among the groups least likely to use the Internet. One possible implication of this result is that internet users would have been less likely to vote for Trump, considering that internet users have been inflicted with all sorts of fake news articles (Boxell et al., 2018). This does not rule out the fact that the ‘least-active’ internet users might be influenced the most when exposed to fake news (Boxell et al., 2018). Another significant aspect of the ways fake news has hindered Trump is to look at the negative effects it carried beyond 2016. Since there were so many articles of fake news displayed during the presidential elections, the residents of the United States find it difficult to separate quality information from false information (Stecula, 2018). Moreover, the ideology seems to impact the assessment of news credibility more than ever. Consequently, a news source that looks and feels fake will be given more legitimacy than an actual reliable news source, for ideological reasons (Stecula, 2018). Knight Foundation (2018) also writes about the fact that Americans believe it harder to be well-informed. “They increasingly perceive the media as biased and struggle to identify objective news sources” Statistics from a nationally representative survey of more than 19,000 American citizens show that more Americans have a negative (43%) than a positive (33%) view of the news media, while 23% are neutral (Knight Foundation, 2018). Additionally, 66% believe that most media news does not do a good job of separating fact from opinion. Figure 1: Trends in votes for Republican presidential candidate by online activity

Thus far, the essay has shown how fake news helped and hindered Trump during the presidential elections. In this section of the essay, the impact of the two perspectives will be analyzed. To begin with, the research of Allcott and Gentzkow was aided by a database that consisted of 156 fake news stories. Of the 156 stories, 115 stories tended to favor Trump over Clinton and the other 41 stories tended to favor Clinton over Trump. Combined they were shared approximately 38 million times (on Facebook), with the 115 pro-Trump stories contributing to 30 million shares whereas the 41 stories only contributed to 7.6 million shares (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Moreover, Guess et al. estimated that out of the average 5.45 fake news articles that American citizens had read 3 months prior to the elections, 5.00 was pro-Trump. Furthermore, Paul Horner, an entrepreneur within the fake news empire, stated that Trump was living in the White House because of him. On the other hand, in spite of these recent findings about the role of fake news having positively influenced the presidential election, Boxell et al.’s research stated other theories. Boxell et al.’s results detected that citizens without the use of the internet or access to fake news articles shared a bigger proportion of Trump’s votes than the citizens categorized as ‘active internet users’. For 2 of the 3 measures of their research, it showed that this was the very first time since 1996, that the Republican candidate performed better or equally well among the citizens that are less active online (Boxell et al., 2018). This finding might also suggest that the fake news during the elections had a negative impact on Trump’s chances of becoming president. This implication must be taken with caution, as it could also be possible that the ‘least-active’ internet users were influenced by traditional media. As previously stated, Russia might have played a role in influencing the presidential elections as well. However, even to this day, the F.B.I. is still investigating this possible interference. Even though the US intelligence community has accepted the fact that Russia was waging a broad effort to interfere, Trump, himself has refused to accept the conclusion that Putin was trying to help him (Cohen & Herb, 2019). As was mentioned in the paragraph above as well, the fake news that circulated throughout the elections has their a negative impact up until this day. From a survey by the Knight Foundation, Americans find it much harder to identify objective news sources as 66% of the population believes that most media news do not excel at separating fact from opinion.

After this analysis, and coming back at the earlier phrased research question, it could be stated that fake news has had both positive and negative effects on Trump’s chances. Trump benefitted from the fake news as multiple sources concluded that the proportion of pro-Trump articles outperformed the amount of pro-Clinton articles. On the contrary, solely Boxell et al.’s research found that Trump’s votes originated more from the citizens who used the internet the least. However, this does not instantly mean that fake news worked against Trump’s chances of becoming president. Boxell et al.’s research could also be interpreted in different manners. For example, it could also be true that the least active internet users were influenced the most and therefore voted for Trump. Not only did fake news sway the presidential elections, the effects, such as low trust in the objectivity of the mainstream media, are still present today. In short, the overall impact of fake news on Trump contributed virtually to his advantage during the elections, whereas the current effects from all the fake news are virtually negative. For further research, it could be interesting to examine the impact of fake news during the presidential elections of 2020. This could be interesting to examine as more social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, will pay more attention to the spread of fake news on their territories.

Bibliography

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Should Fake News Be Banned: Opinion Essay

Wherever you go, whatever you do, there will always be an occurrence worthy to be shared. Due to the advancement of technology, information spreads so fast, but is that information that you have received actually happened? Is that information accurate? Does it come from reliable sources? These are some questions that we should consider asking ourselves before we believe in hearsay or gossip. From political agenda to entertainment, fake news will always be evident, but what is fake news? ‘Fake news’ is a piece of information that was changed or made up to deceive or misinform people and mislead them from the truth. Our citizens are believed to be gullible because we can be easily deceived by fake news. According to Barreiro (2018), a survey was conducted on the seriousness of fake news and it was found that 60% of adults in our society consider fake news in the media to be a serious problem. Well, the good news is that at least more than half of the respondents were well aware of the severity fake news can have on our community. As for me, I also believe that fake news is a serious problem and that it should definitely be banned.

The thing is anyone can make up stories that can change your perspective on certain things. I once experienced being a victim of fake news. Remember Gretchen Diez? Her face was all over the Internet with different quotations in it beside her picture. The first meme that was created seemed so legitimate so I assumed that she really did say that, but then I realized that it was not real because as days passed different statements were in there. There were really many instances where I became a victim, and that is just one of those, and here comes the question of who should be responsible. Is it the people or the media? The media should be held responsible for spreading fake news since they are a platform that is used to reach the masses, and people rely on it. They should follow their code of ethics. As stated by Waddington (n.d.), ethical communication is concerned with the spreading of fake news or disinformation. PR professionals set criteria for journalists so they can reduce the risk of misinformation. Those criteria would be a great help, but on the other hand, people should also be responsible for their good, they should check the sources whether it’s factual or biased.

Fake news needs to be banned. Verifying the information is a must, as the harm of fake news can be severe. But for now, we have what we have. With the spread of misinformation now rampant and the problem currently unsolved, we must be skeptical in choosing what to believe. Don’t be carried away by likes or shares. We must always rely on credible and reliable sources and always verify if it is true. As Shaw said, “Beware of false knowledge it is more dangerous than ignorance”.

Unmasking the Threat of Fake News: Navigating the Digital Maze

Understanding the Proliferation of Fake News

There are four categories of make news which include: False, misleading sites that are shared on social media, websites that contain misleading, unreliable information, websites that tend to use clickbait-y headlines, and comedy sites that offer critical commentary on society and politics. There are multiple ways to distinguish real news from fake news, but it’s up to you to do it. When you’re investigating news and trying to determine if it’s legit or not, you should take a couple of notes.

Determine if the source of the link is credible, point out clear false information throughout the article, background check the information given, find source citations, if graphs are given, check to make sure it makes numerical sense, double check for misspellings and other grammar errors. All over the world, fake news has dramatically increased. Fake news content encourages people to click the link. The more people click on these sites are considered “traffic.” The more traffic a site gets, the more it will look legit. Those who are behind these fake accounts benefit by attracting traffic which increases funding for more advertisements.

Personal Encounters with Fake News on Social Media

As I scrolled down Facebook, I ran into some ads that looked kind of fishy. Before I intended to click the link, I determined if the advertisements had any broad errors. After clicking on certain links that offered something “FREE,” they asked me to fill out a survey. Any link that says they’re going to give me something free, I automatically consider it to be a scam. Obviously, this specific ad had a poorly worded headline and non-legit links and sources. Another link I decided to click informed me of tips to dodge “COVID-19”. As I scrolled down to check the source, it wasn’t credible.

The only credible sources that I would legit believe are anything from medical sites or scientists. This link had authors that I didn’t recognize. The last link that I clicked took me to a blank pop-up window, so, of course, that link isn’t credible. Although fake news and media are increasing, it’s not that hard to tell fake from real. The reason advertisers get away with contributing fake news to the public is that they are able to pay for ads and promotions. The more you pay to get something advertised, the more traffic & customers willing to give it a try.

Guidelines for Recognizing Authentic News

Tips for evaluating news sources include: Read past the headline, see if you recognize the new outlet featuring the story, double check the date and time the article was published, consider whether or not you recognize the author, look for links and sources and lastly, look for reports on the same story through other news outlets. Sometimes legit sources sometimes use poorly worded headlines which makes them questionable. So many false misinformation ads, links, and promotions go undiscovered. Therefore, it is highly important for consumers to use critical thinking skills to eliminate falling for “fake news.” Fake advertising is designed to look real. Many believe that just because it was made to look real, it is real. For example, those sites with quality graphic designs are more prone to trick consumers.

The Role of URLs and the Dangers of Naivety

It is also important to pay close attention to links’ “URL” A legit link usually ends in .com or .net. Those links with unfamiliar URL data should automictically make you think twice about engaging in the site. Some people know nothing about fake news, which makes them more venerable to get tricked. If more people knew how to detect fake news, a lot of people wouldn’t get scammed.

Using the tips and techniques to determine real vs. fake news should be shared with all. It doesn’t take a lot to re-check the sites you visit for credibility. No one wants to be misled with false information regarding their community. However, with everything that’s going on now, COVID-19 – there are a lot of fake articles going around informing people “how to cure coronavirus.” As a consumer, you shouldn’t that these things lightly, and you also shouldn’t believe anything you see on the internet.

References:

1. “How to Spot Fake News” by FactCheck.org. FactCheck.org.
2. “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning” by Stanford History Education Group. Stanford University.
3. “Identifying Misinformation: An Introduction to the INFO Protocol” by American Library Association. American Library Association.

Unveiling the Challenge of Fake News in the Digital Age

Be Prepared for Combating Fake News on The Internet

People in Twenty-first Century can get a lot of information on the internet, allowing him or her to study work and address personal issues. The internet is also similar to a post office, which lets people send and receive emails. The internet has brought about a paperless age and has also increased the speed at which one access or spreads information. There are various search engines that one can use to get information in a few minutes. By comparing it to print media such as books, the web is superior as it saves the time required for studying or working. Even though the internet has brought a lot of conveniences to human society, it also has some disadvantages that cannot be ignored.

The imperfection of the administration and monitoring of the internet has led to the spread of false information by both individuals and organizations for personal gains and selfish interests or with the aim of attracting attention. On the one hand, misinformation can mislead the internet to trust specific websites. On the other hand, if the phenomenon cannot be solved, the user of the internet will no longer trust the information available on the web. Fake news has appeared on the internet in different forms to attract readers’ attention. However, as a reader, one should evaluate the sites carefully and be skeptical about what is available online to avoid misleading or false information.

Fake News: A Historical Overview

Fake or biased news has existed since the beginning of human history. The people that control the flow of information can create fake stories to influence the public perspectives or regulate the treatment of a specific group in the community. According to the book, Influencing Machine, the author Brooke Gladstone describes ancient Chinese society. He asserts that there are no journalists in every place for written language emerging in Sumeria China, only Scribes that he describes as Publicists (Gladstone 3,4). Thousands of years ago, people wrote on different materials, such as bones, stones, or clay. Originally, they used the slates to record daily events and historical accounts. The scribes were treated with respect, and they amassed wealth and gained a positive reputation because they had the right to control the content of the texts.

They controlled the rights to get knowledge, information, and the approaches of expression in the community. For instance, in the article “Combating Fake News in the Digital Age,” Joanna Burkhardt asserts that “Some of the information that has survived, carved in stone or baked on tablets or drawn in pictograms, extolled the wonder and power of the leaders. Often these messages were reminders to the common people that the leader controlled their lives”. Through using the messages, leaders in the past expressed information that would promote respect among the public and allow them to perform their duties smoothly. The people had limited information about their lives and believed that the information carved in the stone or baked on tablets was correct without verifying it. It shows that people in the past created biased information to exert public rule.

The Digital Era: The Rise of Fake News in Modern Society

In modern society, people have more access to information that they need but often do not verify whether it is true or not. Without verification, there is more fake news spreading mainly through the internet. According to the article “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow provide a list that reveals that more and more people get news from social media. The article shows that 62 percent of US adults get news on social media, the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories, and many people who see fake news stories report that they believe them.

The data shows that 62 percent of people were more likely to read news about the 2016 election from online sources, and they deemed the news as credible. Then, they shared the news with friends or family. However, many people responded that they wanted to share the link because it was interesting but did not consider whether what they spread was fake or biased. That influences people’s perspectives concerning a specific agenda or issue. Gladstone mentions, “And now the internet can act, easily, even influence how those stories end.” It is true that because of the convenience of the internet, everyone plays a role in the spread of fake news and can unknowingly influence various consequences. No matter the kind of media a person subscribes to, he or she does not want to convey information confusing people’s perspectives.

Misrepresentation of Africa and the Role of Media

In the video “The Danger of A Single Story,” Chimamanda Adichie, A Nigerian short story, nonfiction, and novel writer, claims that if people express their information inaccurately, it can lead to negative consequences for their lives. Adichie establishes that many people have a misunderstanding about Africans’ lives, even some renowned authors. She gets a quote from the writings of a London merchant called John Lok, who says that “Africans are also people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts.” People hear different impressions of a specific issue and make judgments depending on what they hear and see.

Lok doesn’t reveal the true characteristics of Africans but instead expresses a wrong message to mislead people’s perspectives. This biased information is created because Lok doesn’t have an accurate depiction of the continent and just writes based on his imagination. He subjectively thinks that Africa is a place of negatives, of difference, and of darkness. In the Internet Era, people can have more access to verify if Africa is that bad a place. One can make a judgment based on what they read on the internet. Therefore, if this new bias is expressed, those who do not carry out fact-checking are more likely to be misguided.

References:

1. Gladstone, Brooke. The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
2. Burkhardt, Joanna M. “Combating Fake News in the Digital Age.” Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, vol. 30, no. 3, 2018, pp. 121-127.
3. Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 31, no. 2, 2017, pp. 211-236.
4. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of A Single Story.” TEDGlobal, July 2009,

Use of Fake News Narratives and Memes to Generate False Memory

In this paper, we discuss the science of false memory and how misinterpretations are formulated through both fake narrative stories and fake visual aids to build false memories. In the Fridenberg & Silverman textbook*, we study that the hippocampus is responsible for the consolidation of information from memory, including both episodic and autobiographical memories. This helps us ​consume​ and ​understand ​information, particularly memories of past events, and to make sense of novel information presented to us.

As we consume information through social media, including fake news often repeated through memes and mass circulation, we establish through this paper how such fake information is often ingrained in our brains as fake memories over time. I choose this particular topic as it relates to my research on memes and helps inform my decisions in building a better media consumption platform with my startup, memoirs .

Through this paper, we first discuss the false narrative paradigm developed by Loftus and Pickrell, including the use of false narratives by Loftus and fake photographs by Wade et al. to cultivate false memories. As we develop an understanding of the power of suggestion and how such false memories are formed, we then explore these researches in context to modern-day media consumption through the internet and the more recent viral phenomenon of memes to propagate such information. We discuss how fake news narratives are crafted to aid in false memory formation and are amplified through the use of memes. Finally, this paper establishes the influence of memes and fake news narratives in developing false memories.

More than two decades ago, Loftus and Pickrell demonstrated the ease of persuading people to remember false childhood events. They developed a procedure that came to be known as ​a false narrative paradigm​, in which adult subjects were given narrative descriptions of their own childhood and were then asked to remember and describe their memories of these events. They were told that all of the narratives were provided by their family members; however, the researchers introduced a fake narrative that was confirmed to be not true by the family members.

Lost in a shopping mall, The false narrative introduced by Loftus and Pickrell described the subject being lost in a shopping mall but eventually returning back to the family by an elderly person. They found that 25% of the participants falsely remembered not only the incidence of that event but even novel details about their being lost. This was one of the first demonstrations of scientific evidence by controlled experimentation that completely false events can be implanted into memory. Remember, this was before the movie ​Inception​ came in.

Implanted memory of 14-year-old Chris

In the 1993 case study by Loftus, a 14-year-old Chris was told the fake story of his being lost by his brother as if it was true. In two days, Chris began to recall his feelings about the incident — ‘That day, I was so scared that I would never see my family again. I knew that I was in trouble.’ As time progressed, his false memory began to rapidly expand from ​recalling ​a conversation with his mother and even the stranger to, in a few weeks, saying: “I was with you guys for a second, and I think I went over to look at the toy store, the Kay-bee toy and uh, we got lost, and I was looking around, and I thought, ‘Uh-oh. I’m in trouble now.’ You know. And then I…I thought I was never going to see my family again. I was really scared, you know.

And then this old man, I think he was wearing a blue flannel, came up to me…he was kind of old. He was kind of bald on top…he had like a ring of gray hair…and he had glasses.” It is worth noting the level of detail and sophistication Chris reached with his false memory, including specificities about the location, his feelings, the conversations he had, the appearances of people, and everything in between. As if the brain had written a whole movie just from an outline of the plot.

More interestingly, when he was debriefed and told that the memories were false, his reaction was — ‘Really? I thought I remembered being lost…and looking around for you guys. I do remember that. And then crying. And mom came up and said, ‘Where were you? Don’t you… Don’t you ever do that again.’” He couldn’t believe that this was unreal, and it was as if he’d lived that experience that had never happened.

This case study presented by Loftus and the scientific experiment done by Loftus and Pickrell just show how powerful fake narratives are and the lasting impact they carry on subjects exposed to them. Over the next several years, these false narrative studies have been proven by various case studies, including Garry and Wade 2005; Hyman and Billings 1998; Hyman et al. 1995; Hyman and Pentland 1996; Lindsay et al. 2004; Pezdek et al. 1997; Porter et al. 1999. In fact, in 2017, the famous YouTuber Michael Stevens captured this very phenomenon of fake narratives in false memory through his video series, Do You Know Yourself? – Mind Field in​ ​a 21st-century-themed full HD video study that brought life to these plain old text-based research papers.​

How does such false memory develop?

According to Hyman and Kleinknecht 1999, Hyman and Loftus 1998, and Mazzoni et al. 2001, there are four distinct stages involved in the formation of false memories. ​First, subjects must find the event plausible. Second, they must develop a belief that the event happened. ​Third​, construct a memory of what the event would have been like. ​Fourth, mistakenly attribute their constructed memory to actual experience.As Loftus established in Hyman and Loftus 1998, the false narrative paradigm closely follows each of these stages, and as we discuss next, Wade examine each of these stages in the use of fake photographs for false memories.

In Fridenberg & Silverman*, the text talks about different models of long-term memory and how everything is always accessible once it reaches the long-term memory. More specifically, the text talks about episodic memory that contains episodes or personally experienced events that we are not consciously aware of. This supports the Hyman et al. model as it shows the vulnerabilities of such long-term memory and the fallibility of the retrieval process for such memories.

A picture is worth a thousand lies: false photographs.

I remember being home for Christmas last month, and my mom took out the old family album of when I was a 5-year-old kid. At first, all of the photos looked strange to me, not being able to recognize anyone in the photos or any places or events. But my brother, my dad, and my cousins jumped in — stirring conversations about different events which, in fact, started to form vague, disconnected fragments in my mind. Soon enough, I began to ​recall ​memories behind many of those photos. But I wondered if those were actually true memories or if they were false memories constructed through suggestions.

Wade exploits this exact phenomenon. Wade et al. (2002) said that we know false narratives can lead to false memories, but what about other forms of suggestive media, such as photographs? They questioned if such fake photographs could have the same effect, especially considering them as authoritative evidence according to Hyman’s stages. In the experiment, they use the “lost in the mall” approach by Loftus and Pickrell but instead, replace narratives with photographs.

They ask subjects about four childhood events, one of which was a photoshopped image of a hot air balloon ride, something that never happened, according to family members. Interestingly, after three interviews, 50% came to develop false memories of the ride. Not only did they remember the incident, but they also reported vivid additional details like: “I’m certain it occurred when I was at, um, the local school… Um, basically, for $10 or something, you could go up in a hot air balloon and go up about 20 odd meters… it would have been a Saturday, and I think we went with, yeah, parents and, no, it wasn’t, not my grandmother, not certain who any of the other people are there.

Um, and I’m pretty certain that Mum is down on the ground taking a photo.” And similar to false narratives, they expressed astonishment during debriefing on learning that the photograph was fake — “Is that right? Yeah, truly? How’d you do that?!” Suggesting that they truly believed that what they were reporting was a real memory. Sutherland et al. Sutherland et al. proved that fake photographs can produce false memories for even implausible events, such as having a tea date with Prince Charles.

In their study, six and 10-year-old children were equally likely to develop a memory of the balloon ride vs. the tea date with Prince Charles with just as much vivid details from the cost of a ride to family activities. However, 6-year-olds were more likely to develop false memories than 10-year-olds (40% vs 17%). These studies by Wade et al. and Sutherland et al. show how fake photographs can easily stir people to report false experiences as real

. Considering Fridenberg & Silverman*, the text discusses the hippocampal system of the brain and, more specifically, how the hippocampus acts as an integrator, combining and reuniting fragments of experience into a single unified memory. I suspect this is what we observe when experiencing this automatic gap-filling mechanism in human brains that takes parts of suggested memories and then makes sense of them by combining and inter-relating these fragments with real episodic memory.

Combing fake photographs and false narratives

In Section 1, we described how powerful false narratives are in suggesting false memories, while in Section 3, we show the power of fake photographs in stirring people to report false experiences as real. However, what if we combine the two? Lindsay et al. explored this by asking subjects to remember three school events, one of which was false. They gave all of their subjects a narrative describing the event, while half of those subjects were also given a class photograph accompanying the event.

They found that while 45% of those who read the narrative developed false memories, 78% of those also with class photographs remembered the event. This demonstrates how powerful the suggestion could be when including both false narratives as well as fake photographs, as it becomes a springboard and amplifies the formation of false memory according to Hyman’s stages we discussed in Section 2.

Memes and fake news on social media.

All of the studies that we have discussed so far were published over two decades ago in the pre-internet and pre-social media era. In the last ten years or so, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have caused a dramatic shift in information distribution and the way people consume information today. Since the 2016 election, there has been widespread concern about the role of false stories, a.k.a, fake news, circulated through social media. Since there are no barriers to sharing content on social media, anyone can share anything that they want to, including false stories.

Any individual with no historical track record or reputation can go viral on these platforms and reach millions of people and, in some cases, more than the readers of traditional news media like CNN, NYT, Fox News, etc. In fact, according to Gottfried and Shearer 2016, 62% of adults in the US get news on social media. This shows the sheer value of social media platforms in news consumption and the apparent fatality of ease of sharing any kind of information, including fake news.

Fake news can be considered in parallel to false narratives that we study today. As an individual consuming news through social platforms, if I come across fake news that matches Haymen’s model of false memory formation, it would act as a springboard for formulating false memories about particular events or people.

As Silverman discusses, such fake news is generally geared towards propaganda, for example, how fake news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. In fact, Silverman even asserts that the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories. Silverman and Singer-Vine 2016 demonstrate how the people who see fake news stories also report that they believe them.

Lazer et al. discuss in detail the science behind fake news and how “people prefer information that confirms their preexisting attitudes (selective exposure), view information consistent with their preexisting beliefs as more persuasive than dissonant information (confirmation bias), and are inclined to accept information that pleases them (desirability bias).” This is clearly in line with Haymen’s model of false memory formation and suggests the role of fake news in building false experiences.

Fake news is rapidly spread across the internet through sharing on social media, often in the form of memes — the viral media content of the internet that includes images and videos. First coined by Richard Dawkins, memes are anything that spread rapidly from one person to another, often along with some minor variations.

In 2007, Knobel and Lankshear documented the content of many Internet memes and how most are intended to provide humor or social commentary. R.E. Guadagno et al. take the work a step forward, and they conclude that only content that generates stronger affective responses is likely to spread virally on the internet. They further establish that we are more likely to forward funny videos as we share this information with friends and acquaintances, and we want them to experience the same pleasure that we did, irrespective of authenticity.

In agreement with Guadagno et al. (2010) on the role of contagion, they also assert that due to the ease of sharing information, i.e., sharing a meme with 20 friends or forwarding into a group chat is easier, we are more likely to share content we find in agreement with, often wrapped as memes under the disguise of fake news. This shows the sheer power of memes and the internet in spreading fake news, and as we discussed how easily fake news can form false memories… we can deduce a relation between the spread of memes with fake news and the generation of such false memories.

Conclusion In conclusion, through this paper, we studied the power of the false narrative paradigm and the use of fake photographs in stirring false memories. Through the research of Lindsay et al., we conclude how the combined power of the two amplifies the springboard effect in Haymen’s model, suggesting the development of false memories. Finally, we view this research in light of the post-internet and social media era, discussing the widespread use of social media for news consumption and the ease of publishing false stories or fake news through these platforms.

We then discuss memes and the inherent viral sharing they bring due to their nature and the ease of sharing media enabled by technology. This suggests the deep and mostly unlooked role of memes in spreading fake news through the internet and the consequent formation of false memories that can influence a variety of actions in real life (such as the 2016 elections). In consideration of the Fridenberg & Silverman textbook, through this paper, we see the adverse consequences of the hippocampus in storing long-term memories and its role in combining fragments into complete episodic memories.

We see how such long-term memories, due to their unique retrieval mechanism, can be fooled through appropriate activations with suggested memories and by giving it enough time to “fill the gaps” by ​retrieving​ false memories. Once such false memories are retrieved, they are also stored back due to recency (as we study in the text) and thus generate​ false memories that people believe to be true even after being debriefed about their falseness. As a point of further discussion and research, there lies an opportunity to conduct in-depth case studies on the use of memes in spreading false stories and the direct correlation between reading false stories and forming false memories.

This paper provides a platform to build a deductive hypothesis based on existing research, but empirical studies must be conducted to prove actual results. Further, as we observed the power of false narratives and fake photographs in suggesting implausible and entirely false experiences – there lies a scope of work on harnessing this phenomenon for good. For helping people with depression, trauma, etc. – to rewire such memories in treating patients and producing a healthier lifestyle. In fact, the TV series ​Sherlock Holmes depicted this exact use case, as he had rewired the memory of his sister killing his friend as a dog being lost on the beach.

References:

1. Sequin, M. (2017, August 11). Yes, there’s now an app with the sole purpose of showing you dank memes. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/2017/08/11/memeois-is-the-new-app-giving-you-dank-memes
2. Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25(12), 720-725.
3. Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American psychologist, 48(5), 518.
4. Wade, K. A., Garry, M., Read, J. D., & Lindsay, D. S. (2002). A picture is worth a thousand lies: Using false photographs to create false childhood memories. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 9(3), 597-603.
5. Wade, K. A., & Garry, M. (2005). Strategies for verifying false autobiographical memories. The American journal of psychology, 587-602.
6. Hyman, I. E., & James Billings Jr, F. (1998). Individual differences and the creation of false childhood memories. Memory, 6(1), 1-20.
7. Hyman Jr, I. E., Husband, T. H., & Billings, F. J. (1995). False memories of childhood experiences. Applied cognitive psychology, 9(3), 181-197.
8. Hyman Jr, I. E., & Pentland, J. (1996). The role of mental imagery in the creation of false childhood memories. Journal of memory and language, 35(2), 101-117.
9. Lindsay, D. S., Hagen, L., Read, J. D., Wade, K. A., & Garry, M. (2004). True photographs and false memories. Psychological Science, 15(3), 149-154.
10. Pezdek, K., Finger, K., & Hodge, D. (1997). Planting false childhood memories: The role of event plausibility. Psychological Science, 8(6), 437-441.

Evolution of Fake News: From Yellow Journalism to the Internet Age

The Evolution of Fake News

Fake news, despite being a new term, has been around for an exceedingly long time. While no one can know exactly when it began, it was likely not long after the creation of written language. It has been used ever since, though in varying forms and with varying motives. The internet age then opened an entirely new set of doors for fake news since it is anonymous and accessible to nearly everyone.

The Role of Social Media

In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, it was found that 62% of U.S. adults get some of their news from social media. Fake news has taken on many forms, including yellow journalism and propaganda, but now, in the internet age, we are in a very dangerous time with fake news. Because of this, media literacy should be considered an important part of our education from an early age. Yellow journalism began in the late 19th century and, as described in “Yellow Journalism,” an article by Richard Sheposh, a writer for the Salem Press Encyclopedia, “Yellow journalism is a style of news reporting that relies on sensationalized and often manufactured elements in an effort to attract attention.” The beginning of yellow journalism is usually accredited to Joseph Pulitzer and his journalism in the New York World. Pulitzer discovered that by making his journalism more sensational and catchier, focusing on topics such as scandal and crime, he could sell more newspapers. This, in turn, would make more money through advertising.

Yellow Journalism’s Historical Impact

Yellow journalism likely also played a part in the beginning of the Spanish-American war when the USS Maine exploded in pearl harbor. Journalists like Pulitzer reported this as being entirely the wrongdoing of Spain. They sold newspapers claiming that the USS Maine hit a mine left by Spain, with dramatized illustrations of the ship exploding. While the exact cause of the explosion was never found, most credible sources at the time attributed it to an onboard explosion of the main turret ammunition.

Propaganda Through the Wars

Propaganda is another form of fake news, as it often contains fabricated or greatly exaggerated facts and ideas. According to ” Propaganda,” an article by Mark Dziak, a writer for the Salem Press Encyclopedia, ” Propaganda refers to the process of using words, images, and other forms of communication to sway the opinions of others.” Dziak then illustrates that, because of increased communication technology, propaganda was at the height of its usage impact during World War I and World War II. This propaganda was designed to convey messages through emotion rather than conscious thought. The more emotional and dramatic the propaganda was, the more impact it had. Some propaganda was oriented at specific demographics, targeted to affect only certain people, while others were aimed at affecting a broader range of the population.

During World War I, the U.S. government needed to convince citizens to support the war effort. In order to do this, the U.S. government created Committee on Public Information. This organization was created to persuade citizens that the war was for the good of the people. The propaganda produced by the Committee on Public Information was meant to increase hatred of the enemies, boost morale, and convince enemies that the U.S. possessed more weaponry and technology than they truly did. A particularly prominent example of propaganda was the German Corpse Factory.

This fictitious factory purportedly collected deceased soldiers from German battlefields and rendered them down for fat for use in manufacturing weaponry and machinery. This story was spread as truth by newspapers, becoming believed by many. When the U.S. entered World War II, the U.S. government faced a challenge, much like the challenge they overcame in World War I, of persuading citizens to participate in and provide support for the war. The government responded in a similar fashion, creating pro-war media in the form of cartoons, posters, and films. Due to the scale of the engagement, World War II required more troops and, in turn, more citizen support than any other recent war.

The Role of the Internet

While fake news has existed for a long time, we are currently in a flourishing time for fake news. This is due to the invention of the internet and its popularity. Today, most fake news is found on the internet, either on social media or fake news websites. An example of a fake news website is the now-defunct news site wtoe5news.com. This website posted an article claiming that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump during his campaign. This fake news article was shared over one million times on Facebook.

A large reason why fake news is so common on social media is that 62% of U.S. adults rely to some extent on social media for their news. It is also far simpler and easier for people to create news on social media than in a newspaper. For example, to become a writer for any reputable news source, such as The New York Times or The Washington Post, a prospective journalist must already possess strong writing skills and pass a job interview. In contrast, on the internet, any person with an internet connection can simply post whatever they wish. The internet is also anonymous since the poster of the fake news can simply use a pseudonym as their online title.

Challenges and Solutions

Fake news is clearly an issue, but finding a solution to it is less than straightforward. While it certainly would be convenient if people simply ceased spreading false information, it is unlikely to ever happen. Another option is to make fake news illegal; however, this would be extremely difficult to enforce effectively. A more easily implemented solution is to simply educate people in media literacy.

Media Literacy: A Necessity

Being literate in media enables you to discern what is real news, what is fake news, and what is simply satire, such as the Onion or Saturday Night Live. Media literacy should be considered a crucial part of our education, given the current impact of fake news.

The 2016 Election and “Fake News”

The event that greatly popularized the term “fake news” was the 2016 United States presidential election. The term was frequently used, particularly by Republican candidate Donald Trump. He began to use it not to refer to the deliberate spreading of false information but simply anything he disagreed with or found offensive. Donald Trump’sTrump’s mentality about the definition of fake news has made it a somewhat overused term whose meaning often can be confusing.

Works Cited:

1. DiLascio-Martinuk, Tracey M. “Fake News.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2017.
2. Dziak, Mark. “Propaganda.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2017.
3. Gottfried, Jeffrey, and Elisa Shearer. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016.” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, 27 Dec. 2017.
4. Sheposh, Richard. “Yellow Journalism.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2016.