Fake news purveyors cause problems for everyone from politicians, to scientists, to teachers, students, reliable news outlets, and to the public in general. Fake news plays on the gullibility of the general public to create sensationalist headlines which mislead readers or viewers from receiving factual information that could be helpful in making rational decisions in their daily life. False information can come from fringe groups pushing a particular ideology which runs counter to mainstream views, but because they utilize many forms of dissemination, such as social media platforms, blogs and websites, they often garner wide audiences. This can become a problem for legitimate news agencies which rely on receiving factual information to drive their reporting. When enough people begin talking about a subject it causes a trend on social media platforms. Reporters pick up this information and oftentimes fail to check the stories for their veracity. When this happens, the spread of disinformation goes viral and clouds the truth that is out there.
It is often difficult to know which is fake news and real news if you do not know what to look for or how to check to see if what you are seeing is real. Check to see if the source you are getting your information from is widely known as a reliable one. Wikipedia, while a good place to start research, often is not a reliable source in-and-of itself. Anyone can edit a page on Wikipedia without fact-checks. Snopes is also not a reliable source as it is run by a single individual who has no background in research and is known to be hyper-partisan in his reporting. Snopes itself was begun as a site for learning about urban legends. I will be getting to hyper-partisan reporting later. After reading comments about fake news from students from Australia and the U.S. on Padlet, the students have a real grasp on the defining elements of fake news, the problems that can result from it, and ideas to check the validity of websites. Look for clickbait headers, the more sensational the headlines, the more likely the site is questionable. Check multiple sites. If you see multiple sites using the same headlines, or the same information word-for-word, you are likely to find that the information is unreliable. Check the dates on the website, if there is no date then you may not have the most up to date information at your disposal. Details change as more information becomes available. Question everything. If you have doubts about a claim from a news source, check for differing opinions. Do not look for confirmation of your own ideas as they may be inaccurate. Disseminating false information can cause problems within your community such as unnecessary panic or disasters.
Who is putting out this false information? Fake news can come from a number of sources. It can be a tool for fringe groups looking to destabilize a larger mainstream group. Propaganda has been a tool used by geopolitical groups for centuries. Al Jazeera, in a 2017 article, "2016 and the Truth Behind Fake News" noted that the U.S. CIA often used propaganda during the Cold War to drum up anti-soviet fervor in the U.S. or to foment rebellion in Iran against their government. There are also hyper-partisan groups within and outside of countries who would use false stories to attempt to destabilize governments in order to produce enough negativity in the general populace to dismantle the government or influence the electoral processes. Clinton Watts spoke on CNN2 on December 06, 2016 about fake news and mentioned "White Outlets", or trusted news networks in Russia who occasionally mixed false news stories among real ones to muddy the waters. Some groups seek to spread socialist messages to the foreign public following the Stalinist ideology of undermining democratic nations by spreading its message to sow distrust in democracy. But not all fake news sites are "fake" in this sense. There are satirical sites which use news-style headlines and stories to mimic the real thing to make us laugh. The Onion and Duffelblog are great examples of satirical news. But the more gullible people will read stories from these sources and believe that they are real. Even reputable news organizations have fallen prey to their shenanigans from time to time.
One of the students from the Padlet site asked a poignant question that they found problematic..."who and what can we trust?" If they are doing research, and the information that they find is false, it can negatively affect their research, and ability to critically analyze what they are working on. Doing proper fact-checking, and utilizing known sources, including peer-reviewed sources can help alleviate falling prey to false narratives. When using search engines, be sure to check multiple site headers for word-for-word headers, website names, dates, and conflicting information. Only use sites that you know that push facts over feelings. I know it can often be a pain to search for facts over fiction, but it will pay off in the long run.
If you do find false information while you are googling information or while on social media, report it to try and have it removed from the public domain. It only leads to harm to the general public when it is out there to be spread. As long as fake news is allowed to spread, it can undermine the dissemination of the truth and our democratic discourse. For truth to win out, we must stamp out the lies and sensationalism and bring sanity back to our lives. Do your part to end fake news.
