The New News: News about Fake News

There’s a simple reason why people fall for Fake News. It wouldn’t exist if not for this reason. People, generally, want to know things. But they also want things done fast. So, they try to do the least but most important research first, which is where Fake News flourishes. It relies on headlines to tell the story that no one wants to go through 2,000 words to read. Fake News is about ten second video clips cut out of a half hour segment to show “what really happened”. It’s all true, but tiny truth is more damaging than a giant lie. Clickbait has the same functionality, but for the most part, those are part of opinion outlets or editorials. Those are opinions meant to guide people by emotion. Insinuating that something is wrong or foul with a person’s favorite hobby will get them to click the article based on the headline, only for the article itself to be much more reserved or irrelevant and without citation. Emotional predation is how most Fake News spreads. First it makes you feel s...

 Despite the constant presence of Fake News circulating in social media, there are few ways to prevent it from coming up. Everyone has their reasons to lie or accept lies. If you want to start finding out more about Fake News, do some reading at FactCheck.org. They are a certified agency that deals with researching and verifying statements made by the media and people covered by the media and are trusted by certain government agencies. Snopes also covers rumors and does research to determine what truth might be behind it. Although they have been accused of having opinionated work done, they have existed since the early 2000s as one of the internet's oldest fact checking sources. Ultimately, the only real option to spotting Fake News is to understand it. Individual responsibility is the ultimate stopgap of Fake News. 

 Fake News and False Advertisement aren’t too different. Everyone has seen commercials proposing a magical cure to a common ailment, or heard lines equating a popular soft drink to gaining superpowers. None of those are real, but sometimes they skirt reality just enough that people will believe it. Social media exists on advertisements. There are constant costs associated with running these services. None of them are free, even if you’ve never paid a cent to use them. As such, they need advertisements, and advertisers need to stretch the truth to be heard in the sea of information. Fake News can be used for monetary gain. If face masks are the hot topic, a company can advertise theirs as working better, even if it’s not true. But it can’t be disproven, at least not in a single ad space. The commonality of Fake News in advertising makes it particularly dangerous. 

 Humans are social animals. We seek out those who we want to spend time and share space with to feel safe together. With the Internet, those spaces have become available for everyone, including the people who no one else would want to feel safe with. Without outside scrutiny, dangerous ideas can safely take form with skewed facts. For instance, Anti-Vaccination movements rely on Fake News to circulate their beliefs. They use studies that are factual, but present them in a way that compares to other facts that are only somewhat related.This mixed correlation leads many to believe that children who receive vaccines as infants can develop autism, despite there being many journalistic and medical sources that deny that claim completely. They only see the news that helps their narrative become more valid.

The present day is not the only period subject to the influx of Fake News. Unfortunately, the events of history are in frequent dispute. Facts that have stood the test of time for many years, even centuries, are being re-established and written about. These aren’t reminders of what happened, they are unprovoked updates on stories that have been laid to rest for a long time. A more classical example of “Fake News” making circulations are the supernatural stories of ghosts, aliens and cryptid sightings. They use the presence of factual evidence and twist it into something fantastical to serve a different narrative. Most people don’t believe in those things, but with enough evidence piled up and forced onto someone’s feed they can start to question their own reality. Flat Earthers, conspiracists who believe the Earth is flat for a variety of oddly convenient reasons, utilize Fake News to keep their beliefs strong. They willfully ignore evidence disproving them as part of a plot or larger ...

The global pandemic has led to a great deal of changes in our modern lives. Despite the modern supremacy of medicine and scientific understanding, there have been no shortage of corrections and sudden shifts in the “truth” about prevention tactics in the media. Masks were the sure-fire way to prevent the spread, until they weren’t.   This back and forth of facts versus findings is the core of what “Fake News” is about. In terms of a changing narrative, something which is updating in real time, active and present day “News” there can be many stories happening at once and all of them contribute to the full narrative in the public eye.   Early on, cases were reported in people under 20, and it led to some unfortunate fatalities. Meanwhile, those who were categorized as the most at risk, elderly and previously sick people, were passing through it without symptoms and did just fine. So the truth was anyone could get sick enough to die, but most people didn’t.   Initial let...

You’ve heard about it, read about it, seen it and probably experienced it in the past in some form. Fake News, a phrase made ubiquitous by President Donald Trump, has overtaken our news feeds and social media circles. It describes news, reports, journalistic efforts and statements that are, somehow, false through various means. But, it’s not always about outright lies. Sometimes, the truth can be just as deceitful as a lie. The phenomena aren’t going away anytime soon. As long as new things happen, there will be news of honest, factual reports and Fake News that populates the same shared space for readers. Misinformation will blend with information and the rapid paced nature of social media only makes the problem worse.  It’s become a matter of life for everyone now, but it’s hardly known about. We need to read past the basic facts up front. “Fake News” isn’t just a problem of President Trump’s invention, it’s a problem for everyone with eyes, ears and a brain that can listen.