The Harsh Relationship Between Social Media and Fake News
In today’s society, journalism that is produced from actual journalists are competing with fake news that is posted by people on social media.
According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, fake news is defined as “false reports of events, written and read on websites”. The use of the phrase “fake news” was used by former president Donald Trump so much that Oxford Learner’s Dictionary decided to put the phrase on their dictionary because it was being searched up so much, according to Time.
The problem with fake news that is spread out on social media is that false information is being spread to people and it can cause harm. An example of fake news causing harm was when the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut happened in December 14, 2012. After the massacre, stories started to spread out claiming that the parents who were in grief were just frauds and that the whole shooting wasn’t real and even death threats were made to these parents whose child was just killed, according to Columbia Journalism Review.
Unfortunately, fake news can be produced by anyone that has a social media account and can spread quickly with shares and likes. Fortunately, social media are taking precautions to prevent the spread of fake news.
Social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, are doing their part to combat fake news from spreading. According to Fox News 13, Facebook will let the reader know how old an article is before sharing it on their social media page as well as limiting the amount of times that they can forward a message to someone. Fox News 13 also mentions that Instagram who is owned by Facebook will flag false information and even will tell the reader why the information is false.
Although fake news will still be produced by people around the world, new strategies such as what Facebook and Instagram will help fake news from growing and spreading.
