what experts say II

 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. 

Comments

  1. Nela HlobilovaDecember 9, 2020 at 2:27 PM

    When talking about fake news, I always think of politics/news. I never connected it to advertising, so I am really glad you made this point. I only wish you had expanded more, I would be very interested to know how effective these adds actually are, or what percentage of advertisements use this form of presenting their product/service. Overall I like your choice of topic, it is a very recent one. Well done!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My View

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...
Read more

for further research

 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. 
Read more