Recently, rumors and conspiracies have been spreading like wildfire over the internet. There’s no shortage of these, whether it be that Russia hacked into Twitter and Facebook to sway voters, or that the Las Vegas shooter was an “antifa” supporter. Even if we believe we won’t fall prey to misinformation from online sources, particularly social media, studies have shown that users of sites like Facebook will still absorb the information. These falsities then are able to spread and grow over the internet, and can distort information even further through an effect similar to the game “telephone.” Some people seem to find it easier to believe something if they’ve seen it multiple times, even if the source of the information is unreliable. This is seen through the usage of memes, another way false information can be spread, and then taken as fact. Once people see something online that they may want to be a part of a discussion on, they share it without checking if it’s from a reliable source.
This article strongly relates to the social media lessons we covered. In class, we learned that social media makes it easier in elections to spread misinformation and gain notoriety. This article explains how this spread of misinformation can happen. While there are certainly some benefits to the growing use of social media, this is one of the most negative aspects of it.
The increase in amount of falsities in the media is alarming. Do you think combating the sending of false information is a realistic goal?
How do you think we could prevent the spread of wrong information?
Do you think social media has a place in politics? If so, what should it be?
19 comments:
I believe that there is no real way to combat the sending of false information. As more people get access to technology and social media accounts, they have more chances to not only absorb fake news, but also to spread it. I feel like we cannot prevent the spread of wrong information, but we can teach children how to interpret what they see online, so they will be mindful. During APUSH, we spent a lot of time analyzing the sources of any documents we received in order to catch the possible biases in the piece, as well as any flaws in objectivity due to that. This sourcing activity could be taught to students earlier on in high school or even in middle school, making them more conscious readers of not only their school documents, but also what they see on social media, and in the news.
On social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, there is no good way to prevent the spread of false information. These social media platforms do not have filters for manipulation of truth or posting of wrong information. The current status of social media such as Facebook actually worsens politics, due to automated accounts and bots spouting occasionally false information for one side. However, not all online sources are without credit. I believe most of the online news articles do actively fact check their work, even if some bias is included. As Emily said, last year we learned to sift through news articles to determine their reliability, but also to account for biases, as some sources will lean left and others will lean right.
While it is unrealistic for regular people who just watch the news to fact check everything they see before sharing, liking, or reposting, it will help if people do not immediately just share articles or comments that they like. Social media is a great pathway for linking diverse peoples; however, we cannot achieve that ideal situation where people use social media as an outlet for intellectual debate of politics rather than slandering and false information.
I agree with both Arthur and Emily that preventing false information on social media is extremely difficult, since the world of social media is so vast and untrackable. But I believe that false information is spread by someone who is either uninformed or wants to convince people to believe in a certain manner. If they are uninformed, then they simply have to be informed so that they would stop spreading false information. But if they are of the latter, then their ideal needs to change, which is hard for someone to do, which is why false information remains on social media. Once people realize that their willingness to lie to people to convince of a certain belief is damaging, then false information will stop being spread. Also, social media definitely can have a place in politics, but its role should be to inform people of politics, not to be used as a campaigning tool. However, social media now is past overused by politicians and definitely negatively affects politics and people's mindsets with regards to politics.
I think that one way to combat the spread of false information would be to educate the public on both how to source check and also how to not spread rumors or fake news. Although this may be an unrealistic goal because the public is quite large and educating everybody would be almost impossible I don't see another way of reaching the goal of having only real news in the media. Some people say that we should just regulate the internet so that fake stories get taken down but the problem with this is that most times people don't know if a story is true. Even important people whose jobs it could be to regulate the internet might not be 100% sure if an article is fake or not. Even some of the most famous news reporting companies like the New York Times and MSNBC have been known to report things that actually weren't true. Overall, unless there is some huge fake news issue that creates a national catastrophe people aren't going to care about whether news is fake or not but is that even an issue?
I agree with everyone above. It is hard to control the millions of people that participate in social media without censoring and suppressing their freedom of speech, even if the information is wrong. However, educating people by teaching them what a reliable or non-reliable source looks like is a very productive and helpful way for misinformation to stop spreading. This can easily be placed into middle and high schools as we kind of already have. Teachers can spend certain lessons in history or English classes incorporating research of reliable sources. It might be slightly hard to adapt these lessons into adults lives but some big cooperation could still hold a lesson a few times a year for their employees to learn how to find reliable sources.
I agree with Matt on this issue, and by extension Sahith and Emily and Arthur. Emily's point about the APUSH experience with sourcing is interesting, and connecting that with Sahith's point about uninformed internet users. I agree most with Matt's stance on not regulating the internet simply because it is not possible to counteract the effects of the fake news generated by bots, like Arthur mentioned. I think training people to post or share news less on a gut reaction will help, but that's a humanity issue, not necessarily an educational issue.
Education plays a key role in increasing informed voting, and I think we all realize that. Building a curriculum that focuses more on internet and computer literacy benefits more than just this issue, but training students to think critically and cautiously before sharing "information."
As for the current adults, spreading the word of sourcing seems to be the most effective and efficient temporary solution. Regulations would help, I believe, but the internet and social media move much faster than legislation, leaving that solution relatively moot.
I think what makes the issue of the posting of false information so alarming is that it is very hard to be stopped. Americans understand they have the right to free speech and they will continue to use it at their discretion whether what they say is protected under the amendment or not. The spreading of false information is a very critical issue because it has started to turn our society into a place with no accountability. Since their are so many fallacies today that anything that is unfavorable by someone can be claimed to be fake, creating a scapegoat for politicians.
The internet is so immense and broad that it is impossible to control every aspect of it. While it would be ideal to contain false information, eliminating as a whole is an unrealistic goal. Although, an alternative that can be done is to promote CORRECT information and make it more easily accessible to the people. Individuals spend a large amount of time on social media, I would assume they spend more time on personal accounts rather than going to news websites. Therefore, reliable, accurate information should be provided through social media networks. While social media is a controversial topic in politics, I believe it def. has a place in them. It makes remaining aware and up-to-date more accessible to a larger, more diverse crowd which is something this country needs.
I agree with most of the sentiment here that the online media cannot be regulated. The ease by which fake news is spread far overshadows the difficulty of regulation of nonfactual news. Instead of focusing on the control of fake news, people should be pursuing the increased spread of credible information. The difficulty here is what determines "factual information." Often times, sources can be biased in their own way, and even mainstream media can make mistakes. To prevent such misunderstandings, its important to not only read one source, or to read one side of the common liberal/conservative argument. By reading current information, the reader can prove to themselves whatever news is true or not: it is up to the reader not to be tricked by fake news. Also social media does have an integral role in modern politics. Much of the current generation relies on apps such as snapchat n twitter as ways to keep up with the current election or current events. As such it is even more difficult to maintain purely factual news.
I agree with the previous comments that it is impossible to regulate all information uploaded to the internet, however I do believe that the best way to deal with this is to make sure that people think critical about what they see on the internet. If people believe everything that they read on the internet, the problem of fake information will be much more severe than if people take a moment to realize that what they read in a random post or comment somewhere most likely isn't true.
Social media definitely has its place in politics, both as a message board and as a platform of news. People have the right to voice their opinion, so long as that opinion does not openly incite violence. And additionally, I hear much sentiment that the online media cannot be regulated, but let me expand that: the online media SHOULD NOT be regulated. I've said it before, and I'll say it again-the government cannot, and private industry should not, restrict free speech-that's the true road to authoritarian ideologies such as fascism and socialism. The Arab Spring is one such example: in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, for example, individual people and groups used social media to spread information, meeting places and times, and safe places for which to spread popular revolutions. This lead to the fall of dictators such as Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. More examples can be found in China: the fact that the government places a firewall around sites that that government does not approve of is living proof that China and it's Communist ideology is not an ideology that values freedom. Social media is another platform, like newspapers and radio, from which to share information and comment on them. Now, there are two major caveats: fake news, and hate speech. Hate speech, unfortunately, is free speech-I could refer you to Lizzie Heen's article on Richard Spencer's hate-filled speech at the University of Florida. Spencer, in that instance, was making references and incitements to violence-so the state calling a state of emergency was justified in that case. In terms of fake news, as I've said before, there's no way for the government or for private companies to block the spread of fake news in an ethical and effective way, and therefore, it is up to individuals to find out for themselves what is fake news and what is the genuine article.
I think that social media is a great way to spread the word about campaigns and learning more about the what is happening in the world. With that said, people will always spread rumors, just like in the real world. It is up to the reader to believe whether or not the article is true.
The best way you can combat information that you find online that may or may not be true is to do your own research on it. The internet is a powerful tool that can provide you with an array of information of all kind. People love to spread false information for a variety of reasons like how news channels like telling half baked truths to make an event look good or bad.You can't stop people from spreading false information but, you can provide evidence for yourself whether that piece of information is true or not.
I think it is impossible to combat the spread of false news on social media. Social media is too big to be efficiently controlled and regulated. Additionally, I don't think it is just to regulate media because the first amendment would be violated. I think rather the public needs to be more educated.on politics as well as what is a reliable source. I believe people should just be more aware that there is a lot of fake news and media and that people shouldn't just believe everything they see right away.
I think social media is a great way for politicians to reach out to their supporters and expand their audience, but people who use social media need to learn not to trust everything they read and question whether the news is true or not. I think one of the reasons the media is able to create fake news is because people do not question them or hold them accountable, allowing them to continue creating fake news without getting in trouble for it. If people learned to recognize fake news and call them out for it, it would damage their reputation and discourage them from creating fake news, leading them to hold their journalists to a higher standard.
Social media is used by a lot of society, so social media is a great medium to spread news, truth or fake. It is very risky because anything could be said about a politician, and the population would believe anything, disagree or agree.
Containing false information completely is unfeasible. There is no way to completely cut out all of the false information thus far and still prevent the ones in the future. But that does not stop us from choosing sources we trust more carefully. Because false information is so prevalent in this time period, one should take caution before relying on a social media source without any type of collaboration or research. A way to dissuade false information would be not to buy in it in the first place, and if this is proven to be effective, then those who spread false information would be less inclined to waste their times spreading lies.
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