week 6
Fake news is something that has been around for ages, but has just recently picked up momentum as a coined term with our newest president. From personal distaste in political matters, I roll my eyes every time "fake news" is thrown around. If we get down to the meaning however, and its use, we see that it just means the spreading of misinformation. The Onion, a satirical fake news website, has been spreading crazy information in a format identical to real news sources since 1988. Those who are unfamiliar with the site often think these are real stories.
From Here Comes Everyone, we learned this week that there is a massive amount of information being posted every day/ minute/ second, that could never possibly all be fact checked. This is where we have to realize that clicking on the first google result, or clicking the one that simply looks the most real will not always be the most accurate decision. Researching information across several websites, as well as searching which sites are usually the most credible, will yield the best results. Throughout school teaches stress pulling information only from peer reviewed documents instead of wikipedia for a research paper assignment, and this is wonderful practice for fact checking issues once in the real world.
One of the biggest sites spreading fake news isn't even specific websites designated for such--it's Facebook! I experience this problem on a daily basis with everyone over 30 in my family. They are constantly bringing up different stories and "news" in our every day conversations, but now I've learned to ask where they got their "facts." As soon as they say Facebook I stop listening or put out my phone to credit or discredit their claims. It's become a real problem with how easy it is to click the share button and send a story to your 500 friends. Maybe 30 of those then share to their 700 friends, and a whole web has been spun. If we can't fact-check the whole internet, at least fact-check your own discussions.
From Here Comes Everyone, we learned this week that there is a massive amount of information being posted every day/ minute/ second, that could never possibly all be fact checked. This is where we have to realize that clicking on the first google result, or clicking the one that simply looks the most real will not always be the most accurate decision. Researching information across several websites, as well as searching which sites are usually the most credible, will yield the best results. Throughout school teaches stress pulling information only from peer reviewed documents instead of wikipedia for a research paper assignment, and this is wonderful practice for fact checking issues once in the real world.
One of the biggest sites spreading fake news isn't even specific websites designated for such--it's Facebook! I experience this problem on a daily basis with everyone over 30 in my family. They are constantly bringing up different stories and "news" in our every day conversations, but now I've learned to ask where they got their "facts." As soon as they say Facebook I stop listening or put out my phone to credit or discredit their claims. It's become a real problem with how easy it is to click the share button and send a story to your 500 friends. Maybe 30 of those then share to their 700 friends, and a whole web has been spun. If we can't fact-check the whole internet, at least fact-check your own discussions.
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