In today’s day and age, it can be close to impossible to tell what is fake news and what is real news. From the concept of taking someone’s face and putting that on someone else to convey a message that wouldn’t otherwise be conveyed, aka a Deep Fake, to the concept of fake news articles meant to enact a strong reaction in an already polarized climate, this spread of fake information is polarizing our political climate.
According to Journalism.org, 43% of Americans get their news through the mainstream social media site; Facebook. That averages out to be about four in ten Americans. Although the readily accessible news that is posted to Facebook is a great way to ensure that the American population is an educated bunch, it is also a great and efficient way to convey fake information. Although this has been happening for a long time, it has been widely seen in terms of politics. Facebook’s algorithm tends to show advertisements and information that are most relevant to the user, which tends to polarize the general population. Not only does this lead to an increase in negative cognitive bias, but this also leads to the spread of fake information.
Something that can be done about the spread of fake information is to always check the website that you are reading news from. Some websites are made to duplicate other reliable news sources such as abcnews.com.co and thedcgazette.com. In addition, it is important to cross-check the information that you learn online. If one news source reports on an event, other news sources are likely to also report on the same event. If you can’t find more than one news site reporting on an event, it is likely that is has been made up due to a separate agenda.
It is important to stay up to date and confident in the information you are learning, so it is on the consumer of news to ensure that what they are learning is factual. Facebook has released statements recently stating that they will not be censoring fake news sources on the popular website, so it is even more imperative that the person reading articles online is aware of the possibility of this fake news.