Fake News Problems Map
Reposting
Reposting is a major vehicle for the spread of fake news. It is clear that platforms such as, Instagram, twitter, and facebook, are not certified news sources. Yet, when we are browsing through these sites and see an intriguing or appalling headline, we often times perceive it as fact. If it is particularly alarming, we repost the information to our followers with good intentions, but without ever verifying its validity.
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The photo on the left is a well-intentioned tweet by Logan Paul who was attempting to spread awareness to his followers about the amazon wildfires just a few months ago in 2019. However, this is not a photo of the amazon fires of 2019, it is a photo posted by the Guardian in 2007 when they covered a separate instance of fires in the amazon. This photo was circulated so many times on twitter that this became the communal visual understanding of the events in the amazon. This is particularly problematic because the photo was reposted by celebrities with massive social media followings like Leonardo Dicaprio and Jake Paul
The photo on the left displays a tweet published by a "North Carolina for Trump" page, reposting an inaccurate article written by "endingthefeed.com". This article was completely fabricated and without doing proper investigation it was reposted and retweeted over a million times on the platform. This may not seem like a large issue however when looked at objectively, this was responsible for over a million voters getting incorrect information during a vital time of American politics.
The photo on the left is a facebook post which states that Wikileaks confirmed Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS. This is a particularly famous example of fake news. Though this fake news story did not originate on facebook, it certainly assisted in the spread of it.
The picture below depicts a headline from a New York Times article which states that "Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone". Though this isn't a direct example of a fake news story spreading through social media, we truly have no idea the sheer amounts of fake news influenced by Russia we may have been reposting. This is truly frightening due to the fact that we cannot comprehend the scale of damage this has done because we know so little about it.
Bias
Unfortunately, consumers generally do not seek discomfort and therefor subscribe to news sources that perpetuate their existing beliefs. For example, if you are a die hard democrat who does not tolerate republican politicians and policy, it is extremely unlikely that you will subscribe to Fox News. The underlying issue here is not necessarily fake news, but instead the intentional exclusion of facts, ideals, or opinions to satisfy consumers. I believe that this phenomenon certainly falls under the catagory of fake news one way or another
Editorials or Fake News?
The difference between these two kinds of journalism is often lost amongst consumers. Editorials tend to be more opinioned forms of news coverage, where the journalist inserts a narrative while fake news is a partly, if not completely, fabricated story that is posing as legitimate and unbiased. Understanding the difference between these two forms of media is vital to being a competent digital citizen. If one reads an editorial article and takes everything the author said as fact, it ultimately has the same effect fake news does.
Depicted on the right is a chart which illustrates the reliability of the most well known news networks in terms of bias and political slant. Some news sites such as, The Blaze, or Info Wards, or Partibiotics, have such a political bias that they warp news stories and opposing perspectives in a way that aids their message. Though it is arguable whether flipping an argument in your interest is fake news, I personally believe that taking something out of context and spinning it for financial gain is still, in a sense, spreading false information.
Data Manipulation
Data manipulation, though not always intentional, is a major contributor to the spread of misinformation. When certain data trends and collection are compared without context or reliable citing, media manipulators can easily convince a group of people that the rising rates of autism in America is correlated with the amount of organic food we are comsuming. (graph pictured below)
Trust
Here is another excellent example of how misleading data can be to an untrained eye. Depicted on the right are four graphs with extremely different data points, all with the same line of best fit. This can be extremely misleading due to the fact that these data points could be exemplifying anything.
50 years ago, it was much easier to trust news sources and furthermore, it was more realistic to assume media providers are dedicated to spreading information that is 100% true. Now, "fake news" has become a house hold term, which scares all generations and even deters them from reading news altogether. This is somewhat understandable, as consuming and verifying valid news in the modern day is an extremely laborious task.
In a poll conducted a few months ago in September 2019, 13% of Americans say that they trust their news "a great deal" while the same poll taken in 1972 reported that 21% of Americans trusted their news "a great deal".
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