Tag: misinformation

Fake News: The plague of the internet.

The authenticity of Information has become a longstanding issue affecting businesses and society, both for printed and digital media. On social networks, the reach and effects of information spread occur at such a fast pace and so amplified that distorted, inaccurate or false information acquires a tremendous potential to cause real world impacts, within minutes, for millions of users giving the rise to “fake news”. Fake news or fabricated information that is patently false, has become a major phenomenon in the context of Internet-based media. It has received serious attention in a variety of fields, with scholars investigating the antecedents, characteristics, and consequences of its creation and dissemination. Usually, these stories are created to either influence people’s views, push a political agenda or cause confusion and can often be a profitable business for online publishers. False information can deceive people by looking like trusted websites or using similar names and web addresses to reputable news organisations.

The Rise of False Information

False information is not new; being older than the first Century BC, but under the rule of the internet and the emergence of social media has just added fuel to the fire. Traditionally we got our news from trusted sources including journalists and media outlets that are required to follow strict codes of practice. However, the internet has enabled a whole new way to publish, share and consume information and news at a rapid speed with very little regulation or editorial standards. Many people now get news from social media sites and networks and often it can be difficult to tell whether stories are credible or not. According to Martina Chapman (Media Literacy Expert), there are three elements to fake news: Mistrust, misinformation and manipulation. Information overload and a general lack of understanding about how the internet works by people has also contributed to an increase in fake news or hoax stories. Social media sites can play a big part in increasing the reach of these type of stories.

The False Information Business Model

The internet and social media have made it very easy for anyone to publish content on a website, blog or social media profile and potentially reach large audiences.With so many people now getting news from social media sites, many content creators/publishers have used this to their advantage. False information can be a profitable business, generating large sums of advertising revenue for publishers who create and publish stories that go viral. The more clicks a story gets, the more money online publishers make through advertising revenue and for many publishers social media is an ideal platform to share content and drive web traffic.

Consequences of Fake News

The spread of fake news can have both personal and academic consequences. In a perfect world everything reported would be based on facts and you would be able to trust that the media you consume is reliable. But unfortunately, that’s not the case. As a student you are expected to find, evaluate, and reference trustworthy information sources in a variety of formats. If fake news is included as evidence for your arguments or as part of your research it may raise doubts about the integrity of the sources used as a whole and the ability to identify quality information. It can also be dangerous to do something without having all the facts, but it can be just as detrimental to do so based on inaccurate information. Whether it’s political, medical, academic, or personal, a reliable source of information should be recognized to make an intelligent, fact-based choice. As more and more individuals fall for information online that directly opposes scientific research, researchers are increasingly put in the position of having to defend the validity of their findings. When information dissemination was limited to print, television, and radio there was less opportunity for individuals to publicly comment on, criticize, or refute knowledge presented by experts. With the internet, it is now possible for groups to push misinformation that aligns with their beliefs and disparage that which does not.

What can we do about False Information?

Companies like Google and Facebook have announced new measures to tackle fake news with the introduction of reporting and flagging tools.Media organisations like the BBC and Channel 4 have also established fact checking sites While these are welcome developments, digital media literacy and developing skills to critically evaluate information are essential skills for anyone navigating the internet and especially for young people.

The spread of anti-vaccination misinformation on social media, (and its implications for public health and the global fight against COVID-19) is a textbook example of how deadly misinformation can be. Misinformation can have real life consequences for individuals, businesses and public authorities. Besides the recent pandemic, fake news is another virus we should focus on tackling.

Spread and Impact of Fake News

Fake news is nothing new. We have entered a new world of the media with a speed unheard of and technology makes the spread of ideas faster and more adaptable, hence making it easier for propaganda material to reach more people. Also the advance of new forms of digital media have posed serious challenges for quality journalism. These challenges include a decrease in critical thinking among audiences making them more susceptible to disinformation and manipulation and results in false information reaching the public either deliberately or by accident which results in what we know as fake news today. Fake news is /can be defined as the promotion and propagation of news articles via social media. These articles are promoted in such a way that they appear to be spread by other users, as opposed to being paid-for advertising. The news stories distributed are designed to influence or manipulate users opinions on a certain topic towards certain objectives. Fake news has gained great prevalence in intergovernmental and national policies and regulation. Some believe it is an old media practice of propagating false information that has been in existence since the media was established and journalism became a profession. Others see it as a brand new threat and challenge to democracy and international order. At the same time no general standardized, judicial and institutional framework on how to deal with the phenomena behind the notion of fake news has been found so far.

Fake news is indeed a descendant of propaganda, false rumors, and political manipulation. They include satire or parody ( which has no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool),  false connection (when headlines, visuals of captions don’t support the content), misleading content (misleading use of information to frame a person or an issue), False content (when genuine content is shared with false contextual information), imposter content (when genuine sources are impersonated), manipulated content (when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive), fabricated content (new content is 100% false, designed to deceive an individual). Fake news creators make money in very similar ways from how traditional news companies make money, from advertisements. They have display advertising for which they receive a small portion for every person who visits that page. Their goal is to get the news to go viral so a lot of people will visit hence more social shares mean more page views which result in more money. Since a lot of the fake news appears and is shared through Google and Facebook, they have taken steps to do something about it which include cracking down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Google announced that it will prohibit “misrepresentative content” from appearing on its advertising network. Facebook says it will not place advertisements from fake news publishers on third party apps or websites, because the content falls under the category of “illegal, misleading or deceptive” content. Perhaps that could dissipate the amount of foolishness and hogwash online, though news consumers themselves are the best defense against the spread of misinformation.

As readers or general public, we can respond to fake news by looking out for signs such as misspellings in content and awkwardly laid out website, click-bait headlines, doctored photos and image, absence of publishing timestamps, lack of author, sources, and data etc. Lets hope that by becoming aware of the techniques used, we become more resistant to these methods and hence keep our society progressive for the future generations.