“Fake news” engraved into society assisted by social media
The term “fake news” became a norm in the country in the past years. It seemed as if the term didn’t exist before former President Donald Trump took office and used it to criticize news outlets. “Fake news” has been a reliable phrase by many to explain the supposed “corruption” by news organizations, yet the term itself has become relevant due to the spread of misinformation.
Social media aided the development of “fake news” in the early stages of spreading information that was false. This help by social media to the cause of “fake news” takes various forms and is contributed by many factors.
Social media has become one of the primary outlets that provide news to people in the world. According to the Pew Research Center, 86% of people get their news from a cellphone, tablet, computer or smart device. The problem is that it is easy to create bot accounts on social media. These bot accounts can easily spread information that is false on social media without repercussions.
According to Scientific American in 2017, they estimated that up to 15 percent of active Twitter accounts were bots. The article said that bots “had played a key role in the spread of misinformation during the 2016 U.S. election period.”
This spread of “fake news” has triggered people in the country and created division within their peers. Recently, we witnessed the riots of the Capitol building by Trump supporters after his defeat to President Joe Biden.
Misinformation and the lack of belief towards news outlets by supporters of a former candidate caused a threat to the democracy of the country. According to Professor Rob McFarland in a BYU article, the spread of “fake news” has seen “the growth of organizations like the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) who abided by a policy of fighting fascism with the similar violent tactics.”
Social media platforms like Twitter began to stop this spread of “fake news” by providing platform manipulation and spam guidelines. According to Forbes, Facebook is the fastest spreader of “fake news” and in recent years. They, on the other hand, have taken a more conservative approach. Facebook once allowed political advertisements to stay up when they were clearly fake.
Social media has been complicit in this new revolution of “fake news” throughout these years. It is up to these companies that feed information to the majority of people to set the standard on what is real and what is fake.
