Fake News - Impact on Society

          FAKE NEWS - IMPACT ON SOCIETY

3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake? - T.J. Thomson, Daniel Angus and Paula Dootson 

About four years ago, the term would be unfamiliar to most of us. As a concept, though, ‘fake’ news has been around ever since humans began writing things down (and undoubtedly, even before that). It has been carved onto walls, printed on coins and has even permeated the radio airwaves.

The authenticity of information has been 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. Fake news can hurt you, and a lot of other people. 

Some common indicators of Fake News online are listed below:

• A lot of advertisements and pop ups and outrageous headlines may indicate a clickbaiting site.

• Headlines, facts and quotes do not pass a fact check. Check facts using multiple sources.

• Using Google Reverse Image Search to verify the credibility of images. This can reveal if the images are taken out of context, or are not what the news articles claims them to be. FotoForensics is another software, that can identify whether a photo is real or computer-generated.

• Deceptive urls or site names. 

eg. whitehouse.com is not whitehouse.gov. The Denver Guardian is NOT an actual newspaper in Denver. Look at the About Us section and check the facts in that section. Use the Who is domain name checker to see who owns a site.

• The site does not pass muster using the criteria set out in this guide to evaluate websites.

Nowadays with the ever increasing rise of COVID patients, there is a simultaneous increase of unnecessary fake news which creates unwanted chaos and tension. 

Thus, various steps have been taken to curb the flow of fake news online.

• Twitter now requires users to confirm their identity via email or phone number to fight the creation of false ‘spam’ accounts.

• Facebook is experimenting with shrinking the URLs of hoax sites and expanding its external fact-checking program that lowers the visibility of inaccurate stories in people’s News Feeds.

• The popular instant messaging service WhatsApp is limiting the amount of groups that messages can be forwarded to in an attempt to stem the flow of fake news, leading to political disturbances.

If you want to buy stock in a company, you would want to read accurate articles about that company so you can invest wisely. If you are planning on voting in an election, you would need accurate information on all candidates, in order to vote for the person who best represents your ideas and beliefs. Fake news will not help you make money or make the world a better place, but real news can.