Fake News and Its Effects
Fake news is a type of yellow journalism that consists of hoaxes or purposely false material disseminated through media news broadcast, conventional print, or internet-based social media with the intent of deceiving for financial or political advantage.
Personal Experience with Fake News
My experience with false news has been abysmal, in that I always find situations involving fake news unpleasant since I have significant difficulty discerning which information to believe and which not to believe. False news is exacerbated by psychological control, which makes it simple to believe and propagate swiftly across many media, particularly social media. I have come across fake news several times through the social media platforms, where people post untrue news to influence the readers' political position (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Social media is often used to pass fake news with the intention of achieving the sources' positive outcome, but in most cases, the outcomes have been negative lead by individuals with selfish political and financial gains. Moreover, fake news has been disruptive, disturbing and misleading to me especially that found in social media like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp; for example, when bogus stories about personal attacks, hoax accidents, and deaths of famous individuals emerge.
Fake News in Social Media Networks and Fake News Stories
Fake news is agreeably noticeable on social media like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and even personal blogs. As provided by Politifact a website based Truth-O-Meter used to determine the truth of information based on gathered facts; the 2016 elections was a "bridge to fake news." Evidence prevails in some examples of the fake news on social media including; "Pizza-gate" a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was trafficking children through a pizzeria in Washington D.C. (Carey & Miller, 2017). The argument started on frontier blogs, and Twitter pages then blew out to fake news-gossiping websites and eventually their Facebook pages. The children trafficking fake news approach created a wrong impression thus an uproar that almost led to a new body count by the U.S government.
Laura Hunter, a model, and a photographer is also a victim of fake news; purveyors purported her to be 'an ardent supporter of Donald Trump to push stories of "anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and very pro-Trump" views' (Kaplan, 2017). She filed a complaint claiming that the fake news purveyors used her likeness for a Facebook page with nearly a million followers which also consisted of a fake biography. At least the lawsuit helped her stop them using her identity but Laura was harassed online, and the impact has persisted. I presume fake news as a selfish scam by some parties so as to gain popularity, but it has real-life consequences on unsuspecting victims thus hurting the morals and values of society and also individuals thus an evil way of passing information.
Efforts to Mitigate Fake News
Fake news is not easy to detect before spread; this is because it ranges from a journalist getting a story wrong on news coverage to deliberate falsehood. However, there are ways that parties can use to mitigate fake news including; initiate relationships with trusted influencers in their industry as they are regularly sought after for opinions; leverage in-house corporate champions who can act as company advocates in times of crisis; and create a crisis communication plan that involves scenarios of fake news as well as assigning team members to manage the crisis in readiness for future fake news occurrences (Jouet, 2017). Facebook through CEO Zuckerberg mentioned the use of third-party authentication services; improved ways for users to flag hoaxes; and dynamisms to keep bogus websites from getting rich on marketing monies. The mitigation strategies are working and they are important since some wary posts are pulled down on sight and further investigated preventing wrong spreading to innocent users. The mitigation efforts are important to shield the public from fake information, which leads to making of the wrong decisions that can be detrimental to their wellbeing.
References
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election (No. w23089). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Carey, K. & Miller, K. (2017). Fake news: how propaganda influenced the 2016 election, a historical comparison to 1930's Germany. Place of publication not identified: Marzenhale Publishing.
Jouet, M. (2017). Exceptional America: what divides Americans from the world and each other.Oakland, California: University of California Press.
Kaplan, A. (2017). It’s Fake News, But Its Impact On People Has Been Real. Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from https://mediamatters.org/research/2017/03/16/it-s-fake-news-its-impact-people-has-been-real/215698
