Social Media or “Fake News” Media? What We Can Do
“Fake News” has been a universal term that was famously made popular by current President Donald Trump, and has also been a term that many people often use to describe the untruthfuless and to question the inaccuracies of various types of media sources. According to dictionary.com, fake news is false news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, or promoting or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc.
Way before Trump made the term popular, the term “fake news” was used as a synonym for the word misinformation across social media platforms and similar terms have been used for centuries dating back to as far as the early 19th century. According to an article from ionos.com, the spread of misinformation is mainly due to social media failing to verify the authenticity of a news item. This in turn makes it seemingly easy to share what is disguised as real content as manipulative content. Content such as big news headlines on newspapers and titles of YouTube videos or ‘clickbait’ are such ways in which companies and organizations can manipulate public opinion and use it to deceive people.
The four common types of fake news that you can find include: targeted misinformation, fake headlines, viral posts and satire. All of these methods of fake news can be made susceptible to people who don’t take the proper precautions. Ways to detect if a news source is fake are to: check the sender to make sure that they are verified and have credibility, verify any sort of photos or videos to make sure they are not taken out of context, check the authors and writers and check the URL. If we all utilized these steps correctly, we can easily identify fake news and be able to figure out what news sources we follow to be truthful and not deceitful.
Social media platforms have their own way of combatting fake or inaccurate news by utilizing verification methods such as the blue check mark next to a user’s name on Twitter. Facebook has also been working with fact checking organizations to fight misinformation as well. YouTube is also attempting to stop the spread of fake news by enforcing strict rules in their community guidelines by deleting videos with fabricated content.
In conclusion, people on social media need to be careful and mindful about fake news because misinformation is being spread like wildfire across all forms of media and can cause mistrust and skepticism. As long as people are questioning the reliability of the news sources they follow and can take the proper precautions, people can be safe from having to deal with being misinformed and be free of any false information.
