Category: Fake News

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

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.

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.

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.

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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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”.

Introduction

Fake news on the internet is a standing issue in Web 2.0 (Peters, 2017). With the variety of sources and the number of people who stay anonymous generating content, there will always be a question of reliability. It is, therefore, paramount to equip young minds with skills and knowledge to sort the information property. The literature review on the topic of adolescents identifying fake news in the UK demonstrated certain knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to produce solutions for the named problems. Sufficient evidence has been produced by scientists such as Spratt and Agosto (2017) on the prevalence of the lack of skills, yet little is known about why teens and pre-teens consider the information on the internet reliable. Mainly, this issue persists due to the insufficiency of large-scale studies that target the specified population in the UK and assess the knowledge gaps in students.

One of the conclusions that can be made in relation to the literature review is the urgent necessity of continuous and multidimensional studies in the area of fake news. This conclusion has been drawn based on several facts. One of them is that 80% of the adolescent and pre-adolescent population uses devices with internet access to find and share content using a variety of platforms and social media (Cranwell et al. 2016). Another key finding provided by Makhdoom and Awan (2014) is that about 20% of the adolescent users do not question their sources’ validity and reliability and completely trust them. In addition, school curriculums provide students with little or no information on why it is necessary to carefully process information gained on the Internet or how to do it.

The fact that several authors outlined the scale of the issue and possible areas for further research is an obvious strength of the existing literature (Makhdoom & Awan 2014; Spratt & Agosto 2017). Their findings set the following works on the right path. Another strong point is the existence of preliminary research into ways of tackling the problem. As such, the Four Resource Model proposed by Firkins (2015) was developed to address the issue, yet its practical value and effectiveness are still under research. Among the limitations, one can name the lack of collaboration between the researchers, government, and public schools. It seems to undermine the practical usefulness of the studies and does not provide an opportunity to test innovational digital literacy methods in educational institutions. The reviewed literature seems to lead to a theoretical conviction that educators should play a major part in designing and implementing solutions for teaching schoolchildren in the UK to sort information.

In addition, it has become evident that before starting to develop methods to resolve the issue, it is paramount to investigate why young people tend to believe the information they see on the internet. The relevance of this issue is dictated by the gap in the research in this sphere. Scientists, such as Firkins (2015) or Pangrazio (2016) are more focused on the awareness of the educators of the lack of skills in their students, whereas the origins of young people’s beliefs in the Internet sources remain vaguely studied. Based on this fact, the main research question will be as follows: “why adolescents tend to believe the information they find on the Internet?” The research question appears to be ethical and does not require the potential participants of the survey to disclose personal information or any other sensitive data. According to Hammersley (2014), questions ‘why’ often indicate the explanatory nature of the research question. The present question can also be considered explanatory.

In conjunction with the conducted literature review and the identified fact that there is a lack of education and awareness of digital literacy, the following hypothesis has been formed, “most of the adolescents do not consider the question of information reliability while reading or sharing the news.” Another hypothesis will be, “the adolescents tend to check the reliability of the data more frequently shortly after they have been confronted with fake news.”

Methodology Proposal

Sample

For a broad explanatory research question to be answered with precision, there is a need for a large sample. A survey that is planned to be administered among schoolchildren will include more than 200 participants from different schools in the UK. Such a number is justified because of the requirements of generalizability and validity of the data. As such, the more participants are seleсted, the more reliable descriptive statistics will be (Montgomery 2014). In addition, the more adolescents take part in the survey the less margin of statistical errors can be identified. Ideally, the study should gather about 500 respondents, however, due to the limited resources of the researcher, this can hardly be done. To compare, World Health Organization is said to have conducted an international study that covered 440 schoolchildren (Bucknall 2014).

The study will focus on adolescents aged 13 to 18 years as they can demonstrate an adequate level of internet usage skills. Adolescents as compared to younger children are capable of and more prone to share information that is more sophisticated and may require proof. Children before the chosen age tend to focus on searching and sharing rather than recreational information, while adolescents begin to prioritize meaningful content (Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project 2011).

The study will include students of different public and private middle schools for better generalizability. Gender will be of no significance to the study. Access to the participants is planned to be gained through negotiation with school officials and teachers. An email will be sent with brief information about the study, significance and the survey questions with a request to distribute it to the students of target age. Participants aged 13 to 17 will be required to have their parents give their consent for their children to participate in the survey (Market Research Society 2014). This factor may undermine the speed of gathering the necessary number of responses as some parents may find it time-consuming to read the information about the study and send their consent.

The difference from Clark’s (2010) study is that the number of participants is significantly lower due to case-study-based research design. In addition, the ethical challenges that Clark faced are slightly different from the ones expected in this study. Since she engaged with children directly, she faced ethical and communicational barriers for which the researcher had to use different tactics. This research focuses on online participation, which relieves it from many issues faced by Clark. The location choice that was critical for her is not the problem for the current study, as all communication will be done via the Internet. However, certain commonalities can be identified and minded for designing a more effective research methodology (Cooper 2013). As such, certain ethical considerations like using simpler language could be kept in mind while developing a survey.

Data Collection Tools

The primary data collection tool will be a questionnaire. A questionnaire is an effective data collection method when there are a plethora of opinions, and a researcher needs to measure specific ones to identify a pattern. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify the main reasons why students tend to trust the information they find online to draw implications for developing measures to increase digital literacy. Such measures could be then introduced in schools as part of the curriculums. Therefore, for these measures to be developed there is a need for a large dataset that identifies what students pay attention to when assessing the credibility of a source. Surveys were successfully used by Lelkes (2016) who created a data set to assess the prevalence of fake news to be considered true.

An online tool for creating surveys provided by Google (Google Forms) will be better suited for the current study. Google provides a useful tool for collecting as many responses as possible. The benefits of the online survey include the simplicity of the data collection process. To gather responses by conventional door-to-door, or, in the case of schoolchildren, class-to-class and school-to-school there is a need for a considerable amount of traveling expenses and time. Online survey tool provides a much faster and cheaper alternative to that. In addition, an online collection of data provides less biased results. To legally have a google account and participate in a Google survey, an individual is required to be at least 13 years of age in the UK. The sample age is perfectly aligned with this requirement.

According to Bucknall (2014), during interviews children tend to be stressed and provide less meaningful data replying with “I do not know.’ Questionnaires, on the other hand, can give children more freedom and personal space to produce meaningful answers. Interview for the present research question might not be appropriate because the question itself requires certain contemplation before producing an answer. It is anticipated that many of the potential respondents do not usually challenge themselves with that question. Therefore, during an interview, there might be fewer chances to hear a meaningful answer. It is noteworthy to mention that surveys should not be limited to specified answer choices. Bucknall (2014) suggests that besides ticking boxes, a research questionnaire designed for adolescents should include space for other ideas. Therefore, from the standpoint of gathering meaningful data from schoolchildren, a questionnaire could be a more valid choice than an interview.

Another data collection tool that was considered for answering the research question is the results of similar studies. Unfortunately, the studies that focused on the reasons why adolescents chose to trust the sources of information they read or share were not found. A case study would not be applicable either. As evidenced by Clark (2010), this tool is better used to assess the effectiveness of existing mechanisms of intervention that target school educational practices. As the current study aims to explain a phenomenon, case design could be rather complicated to implement. In addition, one of the purposes of the current research is to identify a statistically reliable answer to the question ‘why,’ which presupposes vast amounts of data that case studies cannot provide.

Data Analysis

The primary analysis tool for quantitative data that will be gathered from surveys will be descriptive statistics such as mean, mode, and frequency distribution. Mean is the average score that can show how many certain answers were chosen by respondents. The mode will be used to determine which in the set of values will be the most frequently chosen. Both descriptive will be used to identify a pattern that will allow answering what drives students to put their trust with different sources of online information. Standard deviation will serve as a measure of determining the dispersion of results. As such, this statistical indicator will let us compare the values and assess their variation (Camfield 2012). One of the main tools to help calculate the descriptives and present them in a visual form is the SPSS Statistics set (Aljandali, 2016; Lampard & Pole 2015).

The key variables that will be analyzed are ‘type of source’, ‘author,’ ‘Links to proof,’ ‘none of the above,’ etc. These variables will be assessed as per their relation to age, and gender to establish additional patterns pertaining to the reasons why adolescents might trust the information on the internet. Depending on the spread of the results and prevalence of one or another variable among all of them it will be possible to tell, which gaps education programs should address first. In addition, it could say what educators should pay special attention to. Ideally, the analysis of descriptive statistics identifies one or several keys as to what serves as the source of trust for adolescents.

Time Frame

To structurize the work on the project, it is paramount to define the key stages. In Clark’s (2010) study the project consisted of three stages including data gathering, reflection, and interpretation. This approach worked for Clark as she already had interventions designed and being implemented. The present project requires more stages as the design of the tool needs to be identified as a separate process that requires resources. To design a survey that is effective enough to assess the sources of trust in adolescents towards internet information, it is essential to review appropriate sources and manuals on the construction of such a tool. It will constitute the first stage of the research. Approximately, it will take about two days. Synthesis of the information and the design itself will realistically take three days. The tool must also be validated and approved for use by school children, which will require assistance of an education specialist (Holland et al. 2010). This task will be allocated for up to a week. In addition, a note of consent should be devised for parents of students who are not yet 18 years old. Half a day will possibly be enough to design it.

Upon designing the tool, the second stage will be commenced. During this step, data will be collected. 10 to 15 schools in different parts of the UK will be selected randomly and sent an email with a request to aid with survey participation with a note of consent attached. The response should be awaited for a week and provided the necessary amount of participants sent their consent to participate, the second half of the second stage will begin. All of the students will, through their teachers, get a link to a Google survey. Response gathering should really take one to two weeks.

After the necessary amount of responses are gathered, data analysis should begin (third stage). The creation of descriptive statistics and its analysis might take up to a week. Discussion and implication parts might be completed for four to five days. The final presentation will be made in three days. In summary, the project from start to finish will require about six to seven weeks.

Ethics

According to Alderson (2014), researching young people requires strict adherence to ethics. In accordance with Alderson’s (2014) research, the present study will be guided by the principles of beneficence, non-malfeasance, justice, and respect for privacy. In particular, the research will be aimed at helping children to protect themselves from misinformation. The results will under no circumstances disclose the information because no personal information except for age and gender will be collected. Total anonymity and data safety will be additionally safeguarded by Google confidentiality policies.

One of the possible ethical issues is the data gathered without consent. For instance, some of the adolescents aged younger than 18 can submit their results to the Google form. Since no personal data will not be collected, it will not be possible to identify whose answers were illegally gathered, which undermines the ethics of conducting research. This will be addressed by the research staging. Educators and school officials will be kindly asked to navigate the process of gathering parental consent before giving the interested participants the link to the survey.

Another ethical issue that might arise in the course of the project development is phrasing the questions on an academic level that exceeds the language proficiency of an average adolescent. Students might incorrectly understand the question and submit inadequate answers, which will compromise the data set. Therefore, the questions of the survey will be composed in simple English to ensure each age group understands them to the full extent. In addition, to grant every participant the right to self-expression, the research will also include blank spaces for giving an answer that is not listed among options where appropriate.

Potential Relevance

The research project is of utmost significance due to the fact that, according to the latest estimates, 20% of the adolescents in the UK lack the necessary skills to identify fake news (Lelkes 2016). The situation is aggravated by the fact that no educational programs address that knowledge gap. The answer to the question of why adolescents in the UK fall for misinformation on the Internet will provide valuable statistical data necessary for developing meaningful interventions to school curriculums to address this issue.

One of the potential limitations is the generalizability of the research data to other countries. Perhaps, the reasons for trusting internet sources in different countries are dissimilar. The problem of fake news is persistent in many countries including the U.S., yet the research will target only UK adolescents (Spratt & Agosto 2017). In addition, survey gathers self-reported data that is often biased. The research findings will also have limited outcomes, as most of the questions are close-ended and do not provide sufficient information beyond the topic.

The target audience is educators who seek to improve the student’s digital literacy. In addition, the project might also be helpful to policymakers in the sphere of education as it provides necessary insights into how fake news is perceived as true. Other researchers might also find this research to be of use because the data produced can be examined in a variety of ways.

The educators should be aware of the fact that younger groups of students might have different reasons for trusting internet sources. They should consider this fact when using the research results in their curriculum adjustments. Policymakers might share this concern with educators. In addition, they should know that the project data needs constant updates because internet habits and skills in adolescents may change with time. Other researchers need to bear in mind the fact that this study can become a part of a longitudinal one and the author is open to cooperation.

Reaching educators will doubtfully be a problem, as they will become active participants in the project helping the author collect parental consent. All of the teachers who participated in the research will be welcome to acquaint themselves with its results. Educators and school board members of the schools-participants can also be emailed a link to the study results. Dissemination might face a problem of scarce replies (Hagedorn et al. 2015). In that case, other teachers need to be identified and contacted. Publishing them in a peer-reviewed journal with a high impact factor will certainly aid the recognition of the results among all named audiences. The problem can arise with co-authorship, as some of the assistant teachers could potentially want to be mentioned in the research. Two variants of resolution can be proposed. One is to offer partnership and continue collaboration dividing parts of the research. The other will be to mention all teachers in the “special thanks” section.

Conclusion

The research is designed to collect data with respect to the anonymity of the participants. No personal data except for age and gender will be gathered. Therefore, no issues with disseminating the research should arise. In addition, all theoretical paradigms that will be used to design and develop the theoretical basis of the study will be properly referenced to avoid intellectual property conflicts.

The practical issues with disseminating the research are also non-existent. As long as the research is published in one of the appropriate peer-reviewed journals available online, virtually any individual interested in the present study will be able to access it. Other than that, there seem to be no more barriers to dissemination.

Reference List

Alderson, P 2014, ‘Ethics’, in A Clark, R Flewitt, M Hammersley & M Robb (eds), Understanding research with children and young people, SAGE. Web.

Aljandali, 2016, Quantitative Analysis and IBM SPSS Statistics: A Guide for Business and Finance, Springer.

Bucknall, S 2014, ‘Doing qualitative research with children and young people’, in A Clark, R Flewitt, M Hammersley & M Robb (eds), Understanding research with children and young people, SAGE Publications, London, pp. 107–121, Web.

Camfield, L 2012, ‘Resilience and well-being among urban Ethiopian children: what role do social resources and competencies play?’, Social Indicators Research, vol. 107, no. 3, pp. 393–410.

Clark, 2010, ‘Young children as protagonists and the role of participatory, visual methods in engaging multiple perspectives’, American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 46, no. 1–2, pp. 115–23.

Cooper, V 2013, ‘Designing research for different purposes’, in A Clark, M Hammersley, R Flewitt & M Robb (eds), Understanding research with children and young people, Sage, London, Web.

Cranwell, J, Whittamore, K, Britton, J & Leonardi-Bee, J 2016, ‘Alcohol and tobacco content in UK video games and their association with alcohol and tobacco use among young people’, CyberPsychology, Behaviour & Social Networking, vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 426-434.

Firkins, A 2015 ‘The four resources model: a useful framework for second language teaching in a military context’, Technical Studies Institute Journal, Web.

Hammersley, M 2014, ‘Research design’, in A Clark, M Hammersley, R Flewitt & M Robb (eds), Understanding research with children and young people, SAGE Publications, London, pp. 107–121, Web.

Hagedorn, R, White, J, Famodu, O, Barr, M, Hanks, S, Chester, A, Colby, S, Franzen-Castle, L, Kattelmann, K, White, A & Olfert, M 2015, ‘Using high school leaders in dissemination and implementation through the health science technology academy (HSTA): icook 4-H’, in Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, vol. 47, p. S38.

Holland, S, Renold, E, Ross, N & Hillman, A 2010, ‘Power, agency and participatory agendas: a critical exploration of young people’s engagement in participative qualitative research’, Childhood, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 360–75.

Lampard, R & Pole, C 2015, Practical Social Investigation: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Research, Routledge.

Lelkes, Y 2016, ‘Mass polarization: manifestations and measurements’, Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 392–410.

Makhdoom, M & Awan, S 2014, ‘Education and neo-colonisation: a critique of English literature curriculum in Pakistan’, South Asian Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 411-421.

Market Research Society 2014, MRS guidelines for research with children and young people, Web.

Montgomery, H 2014, ‘Participant observation’, in A Clark, R Flewitt, M Hammersley & M Robb (eds), Understanding research with children and young people, SAGE Publications, London, pp. 107–121, Web.

Peters, MA 2017, ‘The information wars, fake news and the end of globalisation’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 0, no. 0, pp. 1–4.

Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project 2011, ‘The social life of health information, 2011,’ Web.

Spratt, H & Agosto, D 2017, ‘Fighting fake news: because we all deserve the truth: programming ideas for teaching teens media literacy’, Young Adult Library Services, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 17-21, Web.

There are several types of fake news, ranging from apparent articles to more subtle kinds of deception. People frequently rely on critical decisions on what they read in the news, such as how to vote in elections or what therapy to provide when they are sick. This is why it is critical to have trustworthy news. When individuals can’t identify the difference between true and fake news, critical social and political issues get muddled and misunderstood. A lot of false news is created with the intent of inflaming and exacerbating societal disputes. Most significantly, critical thinking is required while posting or researching on a certain issue, writing comments, and engaging in other social media activities. Many fake news articles are constructed in such a way as to elicit strong emotional responses such as fear or wrath. As a result, critical thinking and research are essential.

It’s crucial to examine a few choices when spotting disinformation, recognizing fake news sites, and double-checking before sharing or posting a comment. First and foremost, double-check the source of the news or information. Fake news sites frequently employ addresses that sound like legitimate newspaper locations, but they lack authentic stories on various themes. If the website appears to be unsteady, go to the “About” page and seek a detailed description of the company. Second, look into the author. Check them out to see whether they’re reliable – do they have a strong reputation, and do they write about their field of expertise? Furthermore, the motivation of the author may be essential in the dissemination of forgeries. Third, fact-checking is necessary since trustworthy news reports will include numerous facts such as data, figures, and expert statements. If they aren’t there, inquire as to why. Reports containing misleading information sometimes contain wrong dates or time periods, so it’s a good idea to double-check the article’s publication date.

Title of the Article & Authors

• Article is titled Ginger is Stronger than Chemotherapy for Cancer;
• Authored by Christa Orecchio on The Whole Journey website;
• Author’s name was extracted from the comments section;
• Author is not expressly mentioned in the article;
• Article has a corresponding YouTube video published in 2016.

The article is authored by Christa Orecchio and published on The Whole Journey website. Its title is Ginger is Stronger than Chemotherapy for Cancer. It is also linked to a YouTube video with the same information. I found the author’s name in the comments section as the article lacks an author and date of publishing.

Fake News Content

The article argues that:

• Sundried ginger is 10,000 times more effective for cancer compared to chemotherapy;
• Chemotherapy only kills cancer cells, leading to reoccurrence;
• Ginger powder contains the component 6-gingerol;
• 6-gingerol kills cancer stem cells, preventing reoccurrence;
• Ginger does not harm human cells (Orecchio, 2016).

The article claims that a component of dried ginger, called 6-gingerol, is 10,000 times more effective in cancer treatment than chemotherapy. It argues that while chemotherapy kills cancer cells only, 6-gingerol kills cancer stem cells without any harm to human cells to prevent reoccurrence of the illness (Orecchio, 2016). According to the news, the ginger component kills even cancer stem cells, which are resistant to chemotherapy (Orecchio, 2016). Additionally, the author insists on sundried ginger to achieve maximum benefits.

Method of Detection

• Corroboration through a search on Google scholar:
  • No research published in peer reviewed articles supports the argument.
  • There are peer-reviewed articles against the claim, such as Figure 1.
• Construction:
  • The authors are keen on advertising specific brands
  • In the comments section, they are constantly telling people not to dry ginger at home but buy from certain brands.
• Facts check:
  • Ginger has medicinal value against cancer but not more effective than chemotherapy.
  • Until today, scientists are looking for ways to kill cancer stem cells.
  • Ginger does not kill the stem cells.
  • Chemotherapy uses only 6 microgram/mL IC50 for cisplatin treatment of PC3 cell cultures.
  • Ginger uses 250 microgram/mL IC50 for cisplatin treatment of PC3 cell cultures.
  • Therefore, ginger is much less effective than chemotherapy (McCarthy et al., 2019).

When the article’s content was checked on peer-reviewed journals, it was non-existent. However, an article was found that directly refuted the claim that ginger is more effective than chemotherapy in treating cancer. Additionally, the authors are directly advertising specific dried ginger brand to readers in the article and in the comments section. Such advise shows an inclination towards advertising the products than informing the reader.

I found a website that conducted investigation into the article’s claim. According to a fact check on the article by McCarthy et al (2019), ginger offers some help with cancer treatment but does not exceed chemotherapy in effectiveness. Ginger’s usefulness is very low, requiring 250 microgram/mL IC50 for cisplatin treatment of PC3 cell cultures where chemotherapy needs only six (McCarthy et al., 2019). Therefore, chemotherapy’s efficacy is much higher than ginger in treating cancer.

Potential Impact on General Public and Relevance

• Health misinformation creates fear.
• Cancer patients might stop or delay treatments.
• Patients will doubt their physicians and other health providers.
• Patients spend their resources on ineffective products.
• Patients doubt and abandon their treatment plans (Dai et al., 2020).

Health misinformation spreads unnecessary fear and doubts among patients and their families. Cancer patients who believe that ginger can replace chemotherapy will delay or stop treatment, doubt their health providers, spend money on ginger remedies that will not work, and abandon their existing treatment plans (Dai et al., 2020). Such behaviors will increase mortality rates, interfere with advances made in medical field, and reduce quality of life.

Potential Impact on Nursing Practice and Relevance

• Nurses have to re-educate patients on cancer treatment.
• Need to follow up on chemotherapy patients who abandon treatment for ginger.
• Need to clear the misinformation with patients, their families, and support groups.
• Deal with doubtful patients to make the right choices (Dai et al., 2020).

Fake health news such as this increase the nurses’ workload, requiring them to re-educate their patients on cancer treatment options. Additionally, patients who might consider dropping chemotherapy treatment need the nurse’s follow up and empowerment to continue with the treatment (Dai et al., 2020). The nurse has to clear the misunderstanding with the patient’s family as well to ensure there is enough social support. Doubtful patients will be reluctant to accept chemotherapy sessions (Dai et al., 2020). The nurse has to interview the patient, understand the cause of doubts, and address them.

References

Dai, E., Sun, Y., & Wang, S. (2020). Ginger cannot cure cancer: Battling fake health news with a comprehensive data repository. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 14, pp. 853-862). Web.

McCarthy, A., Hoskin, D., Isenring, E., & Marshall, S. (2019). Claim that ginger is more effective than chemotherapy for cancer treatment is unsupported. Health Feedback. Web.

Orecchio, C. (2016). Ginger is stringer than chemotherapy for cancer. The Whole Journey. Web.

Introduction

It is widely believed that the media cannot provide exclusively trustful information. Nowadays people have to decide on their own about what is true and what is false. Fake news and conspiracy theories such as weapons of mass destruction used in the Eastern world or Muslims wanting to kill Westerns are familiar to everyone. However, people who believe in their “gut instinct” tend to consider them truthful, while others who use their critical thinking and evidence are more likely to reject such news and theories. In this case, the latter always looks for the source and checks the information via other publications and the media. The former group of people prefers to listen to the inner voice, claiming that their intuition identifies their views. This paper will provide a compare and contrast analysis of the mentioned groups based on by criteria method and several supportive strategies. Among the key criteria of epistemic beliefs, there will be views regarding politics (truth is political), evidence consideration (need for evidence), and intuition (faith in intuition for facts).

Views Regarding Politics

The recent study by Garrett and Weeks (2017) examined 700 respondents, asking them to provide their attitudes regarding the most widespread fake news. In the course of analysis, it was established that people who are sure that political power controls the world and dictates how to live are more likely to believe conspiracy theories. For example, they pointed out their trust in such news as the development of weapons of mass destruction as well as the probability of their rapid implementation and other falsehoods. On the contrary, the study revealed that those who do not perceive politics as something that regulates the entire world are likely to doubt fake news. They tend to recognize inaccurate information and filter it by checking facts and looking for evidence. At the same time, the opponents are characterized by the higher rationality in terms of believing information presented by the media, especially online sources, which become one of the quickest deliverers of facts to readers.

Evidence Consideration

The political bias is complicated by the fact that many people are not aware of the necessity to verify information received from the media. In their research, Garrett and Weeks (2017) indicate that the “compatibility of beliefs with externally validated data” identifies either people will trust fake news or not (p. 3). In particular, people who consider that evidence is critical in analyzing news are less likely to fall in conspiracies ideation. For example, it is stated that they think that vaccines are not related to autism with a score of one (most accurate) compared to their opponents who claim that vaccines cause autism along with other psychological disorders with a score of five (most inaccurate). In other words, people who do not rely on evidence are more prone to perceive conspiracy theories and fake news as truth. They are likely to experience misperception regarding such issues as, let us say, the assassination of John Kennedy by John Harvey Oswald and the reasons for global warming, which are caused not by humans.

Intuition

Trust of an individual in his or her “gut instinct” that refers to intuition is another factor that may be used to anticipate his or her attitude towards fake news. Reviewing the mentioned research study, Dyer (2017) mentions that people who fully trust their gut are more likely to believe in fake news in comparison to those who build their views on the evidence. This can be said of such issues as the use of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the idea that most Muslims pursue the goal of destroying the Western world. However, as for the associations between vaccines and autism, both groups identified their mistrust of this information. Thus, it is safe to assume that individuals “putting more faith in their ability to use intuition to assess factual claims than in their conscious reasoning skills” are more likely to have conspiracist ideation rather than their opponents (Garrett & Weeks, 2017, p. 12). Since the latter combine intuition and evidence reliance, they are less prone to misperception.

Conclusion

To conclude, it seems essential to emphasize that a range of factors determine whether people are likely to trust fake news and conspiracy theories or reject them. In general, people who trust fake news and those who are not prone to conspiracist ideation are distinguished by three factors, including views regarding politics, evidence consideration, and intuition. Based on the investigation of respondents’ opinions about the most critical conspiracy theories, the research study shows that the mentioned criteria may be useful to assess, anticipate, and address people’s misperception regarding politics’ role in the modern society. To provide informed decisions, the provided epistemic beliefs are helpful in addressing the challenge of inadequate information perception. Therefore, the study suggests that more reliance on evidence rather than intuition and instinct is likely to prevent and eliminate the appearance of inconsistencies, falsehoods, and misinterpretations, thus contributing to a more transparent and accurate perception of news. Journalists, fat checkers, and scholars may promote this in their articles and other publications.

References

Dyer, J. (2017). Trust in ‘gut instinct’ linked to belief in fake news. Web.

Garrett, R. K., & Weeks, B. E. (2017). Epistemic beliefs’ role in promoting misperceptions and conspiracist ideation. PloS One, 12(9), 1-17.