Fake News: a New Platform in The Modern Era

Introduction

The shocking headlines of the past year, such as “Pope Francis shocks the world, endorses Donald Trump for president” and “Ten thousands of fraudulent votes found in Ohio warehouse,” all have one thing in common: they weren’t true. These stories were manufactured out of malice or to make money through advertising revenue by deceiving unwitting Internet readers. In other words, this is "Fake News" (Panko, 2017). A survey conducted by Team Lewis on “The Role of Fake News on Media and Brand Consumption” defines Fake News as an ambiguous term for a type of journalism that fabricates or manipulates materials to produce a more favorable narrative in fields such as politics, finance, or even for mere attention-seeking gains. Moreover, seventy-four percent of the respondents said that fake news only appears when facts are purposefully misrepresented or when articles lack relevant facts (Lardieri, 2017).

'Fake News: A New Platform in The Modern Era'

Fake News seems new, but the platform it uses is the only new aspect. People usually think of social media posts with fantastic, implausible stories when fake news comes up (Gu et al., 2017). Fake News continues to spread for two main reasons: to gain from sensationalist attitudes or to promote political ideologies. Furthermore, some people believe an article is fake if it relates to political issues, and fake news spreads quickly on social media networks because it is easy to share (Panko, 2017).

Thomas Fiedler mentioned in the COMTALK column that faculty and students have been agonizing over the appearance of fake news on social networking sites and in society, which is false information packaged to deceive viewers into believing it was created by professionals with respect for the truth. Moreover, Fake News was compared to cockroaches that tend to keep coming back, as Jim Rutenberg said in The New York Times (Rimer, 2017). According to researchers Beuth et al., Fake news is much more dangerous as it abuses the functional logic of social networks, potentially upsetting users at any time.

The Mechanics of Fake News

According to researchers Gu et al., Fake News has a fire triangle similar to the three elements required for fire to ignite: oxygen, heat, and fuel. In Fake News, three different items are needed for it to succeed, and without these factors, it cannot spread and reach its target. First is the “Tools and Services” for manipulating and spreading the message across relevant social media networks, often involving money from across the globe. This is primarily for social media promotion to be readily available both inside and outside the underground scene. Second is the platform, which refers to “Social Networks,” enabling faster spread throughout the world by people who actively spend their time online to see the latest news and articles. However, it isn’t as simple as posting; spammers should use it to lure people into viewing their stories. The third and last tool is “Motivation,” which is simply a desire for monetary gain through advertising. Regardless of the motive, the success of any propaganda campaign will be judged based on its real-world impact.

Impacts of Fake News

The most common fake stories revolve around politics, but people cannot undermine the impact of these false stories on society. Fake News can split society, particularly during political events such as elections. Furthermore, it can polarize different groups within a nation and affect international relations. However, Fake News doesn’t only revolve around political issues; it also thrives in the world of showbiz, which is wild these days. Celebrity scandals dominate tabloids, and fake scandals seem more believable than the truth, leading to racism, harassment, intimidation, and the destruction of reputations. These scenarios happen on social networks, where users comment and share, confirming biases and spreading false information (Matsa, 2017).

Global Phenomenon

Fake news is not unique to the Philippines; it has become a global phenomenon undermining democracy and free press. The platform most widely used for real news is also where Fake News spreads, prompting media organizations and academia to address the problem (Pamintuan, 2017). Fake News has been suggested as an oxymoron, explaining that it is an oxymoron for lies camouflaged as truth (Tordesillas, 2017). Moreover, Fake News is a misnomer; it is not news anymore and should be called a “misinformation and disinformation ecosystem,” especially in the Philippines (Bueno, 2017).

In the Philippines, Fake News floods and is not always complimentary. It has been said that it recruits soldiers for a coup, involving the Vice-President and the United Nations Secretary-General conspiring to remove the president. These attacks come in waves from outraged trolls with social media accounts, later flooded with insults, violent threats, and memes mocking and disgracing a person, place, or issue before reaching their target. Until now, nobody knows who funds the creators of this content (Syjuco, 2017).

Cognitive Vulnerability

However, a new study suggests that Fake News shouldn’t be the only thing to blame, but rather the limitations of the human brain. This study explains that when people are overloaded with information, they tend to rely on less-than-ideal coping mechanisms to distinguish good from bad, favoring the most popular rather than the truth. In other words, a person with overloaded thoughts or information is much easier to manipulate by advertisers and purveyors of fake news. Due to the significant impacts of this, judging between good and bad information has become more important than ever in today’s online information networks (Panko, 2017).

Conclusion

The real impact of spreading fake news and growing interest in it is the realization that the public might not be well-equipped to differentiate truth from false information. Moreover, this ideology seems to have a great impact on the assessment of legitimate news to a troubling degree, as some people tend to believe something that looks and feels real. Sadly, there is no easy way to fix such a problem, which is something Google and Facebook are trying to address. However, the solution to this problem should start with the users themselves. They should enhance their skeptical skills and be better equipped to differentiate false from true information in the future (Stecula, 2017).

References

Bueno, A. (2017). The misinformation and disinformation ecosystem in the Philippines. Inquirer.

Gu, L., Kropotov, V., & Yarochkin, F. (2017). The fake news machine: How propagandists abuse the internet and manipulate the public. Trend Micro.

Lardieri, A. (2017). Fake news in 2017: What it is and how to spot it. U.S. News & World Report.

Matsa, K. E. (2017). 5 facts about fake news. Pew Research Center.

Pamintuan, B. (2017). The battle against fake news. The Philippine Star.

Panko, R. (2017). The science behind why fake news is so hard to stop. TIME.

Rimer, S. (2017). Fake news is like cockroaches. Boston University COMtalk.

Stecula, D. (2017). The problem with fake news. The Conversation.

Syjuco, C. (2017). Who’s funding fake news? The Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Tordesillas, E. (2017). Fake news is an oxymoron. VERA Files.