We have heard much about Fake News. What is Fake News?
I decided to research the issue, went to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
“Fake news is a type of yellow journalism of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. Fake news is written and published with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically, often with sensationalist, exaggerated or patently false headlines that grab attention…………..Fake news often employs eye-catching headlines or entirely fabricated news stories to increase readership, online sharing and Internet click revenue…..Fake news also undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories.”
“Easy access to online advertisement revenue, increased political polarization, and the popularity of social media, primarily the Facebook News Feed, have all ben implicated in the spread of fake news, which have come to provide competition for legitimate news stories. An analysis by Buzzfeed found that the top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S, Presidential election received more engagement on Faceboook than the top 20 news stories on the election from 19 major media outlets.”
“Anonymously-hosted fake news websites lacking known publishers have also been credited, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake new for libel. The relevance of fake new has increased in a post-truth political reality. In response, researchers have explored the development of a psychological “vaccine” to help people to detect fake news.”
There is much more. Google Wikipedia, then Google Fake news, if you are interested in learning more.
A lie is a lie, and if we as readers spread Fake News, we are doing a disservice to all.
Fake news is a big thing in the field of Social Media Journalism. Fake news can be as simple as spreading misinformation or as dangerous as smearing hateful propaganda. Fabrizio Moreira
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. George Bernard Shaw
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Socrates
robert g hester
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