As technology continues advancing and expanding, so does the issue of fake news. Fake news has gradually become a phenomenon in our modern digital age as social media plays a tremendous role in its viral spread. By people getting to know and recognizing that this pandemic does exist, it will become easy to stop the rumours and gossip that circulate on our social media platforms. Researchers argue that people ought to fully understand the creation of these online sites as well as figure out how people respond to them. Experts argue that a new phenomenon is emerging despite memory being disreputably fallible. With the help of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, people have an opportunity to share their memories with groups of individuals, and this, according to psychologists, blurs a line between a person and collective memories. The establishment of internet-based misinformation, such as fake news sites, has the potential to distort individual and collective memories in a very distressing way.
Fake news can be defined as the misinformation that the media fraternity and their journalists intentionally spread through the use of social media platforms, broadcasting news media or news we see on television. The core intention of spreading the fake news is to mislead people and gain politically or financially. Social media platforms have been considered to play a crucial role in fuelling fake stories, and they have also been responsible for replacing humans with algorithms. Law enforcement agencies often focus on fake news articles that might end up having political implications, such as the presidential elections (Balmas, 2014). Law enforcers view phoney news as news that has been intentionally fabricated or reports that emerge from satirical websites and can be highly considered factual by the general population when considered in isolation on platform feeds.
The probable impact of fake news might be exciting to a more discerning reader, but it has the power to cause unpredicted and also tragic outcomes. A good example was when fake news circulated that Israel was threatening to wage war on Pakistan. Pakistan decided to go first and respond with a genuine nuclear war on Israel, yet Israel was not planning to wage war on Pakistan. The story sounded accurate and factual as it had been written in conformity with a journalist style. Most of the fake news looks good and real, and this is why people in society opt to believe it.
One way to identify clone news sites is by looking at the idealism of the news and comparing it to other news. Instead of attacking the status quo by making politicians and leaders more ridiculous, they mainly focus on stories that envisage a world where decisions are not driven by greed, power or lust as the workers have come to their senses. Many of these clone news sites often try to derive a faux authenticity not by mirroring the graphic style of other news but by appropriating the name itself.
The government and society have tried to respond to this issue of fake news by eliminating the news stories entirely, but because of free speech rights together with the internet’s open nature, it has become impossible (Bridge, 2016). The only way this issue can be handled is by gradually teaching people about the existence of fake news and explaining some of the damaging effects that come with false news, and by doing so, it becomes easier to change their minds about producing phoney news.
Moreover, by letting society know that fake news is wrong news, it becomes easy to stop the spreading of false news. The community ought to know that counterfeit news is wrong news and thus should not believe it or spread it. In our modern world, hoaxes have been seen to migrate from mainstream papers and joined tabloid outriders such as The New Globe. Technology is responsible for changing the business world, something that was imaginable a decade ago, but the same technology is responsible for delivering and formulating fake news.
This is possible through using satellite and cell phones, wireless internet, Photoshop, blogger software and even digital cameras. If you are the kind of individual who thinks that the only way this issue can be addressed is by developing laws, then you are wrong because there already exists a law that prohibits the use of funding for publicity or propaganda reasons. Despite the existence of this bill, fake news persists and has become an issue.
It is essential for society to all consider the source of the news to know where it came from before believing it. Numerous news sources exist that can assist in identifying where the source of the story came from and whether the news is factual or mere gossip/propaganda. There exist opinion pieces that have been written by experts and journalists, and despite being written by experts, they should remain as opinion pieces and not be considered impartial reports. There are also parody or satire sites whose core purpose is to entertain and persuade readers. Readers should not mistake what they read in these sources and refer to them as news sources. Native advertising also exists, whose core objective is to sell and not inform. Scholarly sources are the only sources that have been investigated by experts, and their authenticity has been proven.
Mustafaraj (2017) argues that reporters for a newspaper are expected to gather information that represents both sides of the story and not focus on one side alone. He continues to argue that to solve the issue of fake news. Indeed, society must be ready to mix technological support with teaching people to become data-literate consumers, thus making it easy to identify phoney news. When society makes fake news real, it gives it the power to affect every person. Some individuals believe that due to the First Amendment rights, it becomes hard to fully eradicate this issue of fake news as people have been granted the freedom to speak their minds. Some argue that the only way this problem can be eliminated is if the U.S. Constitution always takes people’s Constitutional Right to freedom of speech. This proves just how much fake news is slowly getting out of hand, and a resolution needs to be achieved faster to protect the future of our media and social networks.
From the discussion above, it’s accurate to say that fake news has slowly become an issue that society is struggling with. The solution to winning this battle of inaccurate news is to train people within the community to report news that is real and know the source of the news before they spread it. Protecting people’s right to free expression will also play a part in slowing down the rate by which fake news is spreading. It’s essential that members of society can differentiate real news from false reports as this will help to control the issue. If every individual played their part when it came to communicating the truth and not permitting bogus stories to deviate from them, then the pandemic of fake news could be managed. Moreover, by educating our future journalists, it becomes easy to handle this issue of fake news and eradicate it slowly.
Reference
Balmas, M. (2014). When Fake News Becomes Real: Combined Exposure to Multiple News Sources and Political Attitudes of Inefficacy, Alienation, and Cynicism. Communication Research, 41(3), 430. Doi:10.1177/0093650212453600
Bridge, Mark, Facebook blamed as fake news stories go viral, The Times newspaper, Nov. 2016,
Mustafaraj, E., & Metaxas, P.T. (2017). The Fake News Spreading Plague: Was it preventable?
