How To Spot FAKE NEWS?
Without any doubt 21st century brought tremendous benefits through digitalization to all humankind. Social media such as: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Gab and the list can continue, are the “big winners” and although the goal was to link billions of people, I do believe that it developed the users with an INHUMAN feature, by turning them into PATIENCE-LESS and EAGER to CONSUME FEELINGS or whatever it’s on the table NOW, without too much thinking or investing time and resources. As we look into subways, restaurants, pubs, office-meetings, places where people should socialize, we can see that most of them are always with one eye on the phone to check the new updates on Social Media, instead of talking to each other. Nowadays even kids don’t play anymore through the old ways by: running, cycling, rolling, skating, etc . They just hang together by tweeting/SMSing each other although they are in the same place and they could actually SPEAK.
In the same time it helped impostors and fraudsters spread FAKE NEWS and I do believe that this is much worse, because this is based on FEAR, one of the basic feeling that generates without any doubt a DEFENSE REACTION, most of the times violent at least in communication, in order to protect your Values (Family, Principles, Assets,etc).
As I see it, there is not too much control for the reader in disseminating which info is correct or not and it is also connected with his level of education. Usually, less educated people engage in violent behavior (verbally) without taking any time off to analyze if the info received is GENUINE or NOT, while the more educated ones do consider that step important and act upon it.
If you add to it that using social media, you can do campaigns and target a certain category of people, using criteria such as: Education, Age, Location and Interests it’s perfect for Imposters to MANIPULATE people.
The goal is to GET the MONEY, although recently I have seen that POLITICS, it’s the NEW FOCUS, in order to get the votes. This one it’s even devious because usually it creates segregation in societies using the cliché: Who is TO BE BLAMED for your UN-ACHIEVEMENTS or UN-HAPPINESS? So it builds opponent categories: Young vs. Elderly, Rich vs. Poor, Public vs. Private, etc.
The next most probable question that needs to be raised should be: How can you spot FAKE NEWS?
I have read some articles (The most representative one was the flyer made by IFLA-Well done!) and based also on my experience, I would suggest looking up for at least the following:
1. Source –Who is the owner and what is the purpose?
2. Title –Don’t stop for the title and read the whole news.
3. Author –Look up the author & other articles written by him. Is he reliable or bias?
4. Language- Is it aggressive or contains insults?
5. Proofs- What proofs does it bring? Can you find proofs from reliable sources?
6. Expert- If you are not an expert in that field, DO ASK one. Nobody is perfect!
7. Think - for yourself. Don’t let other tell you what to think.
Most of all, don’t forget: SPEAKING and LISTENING TO each other may be the KEY to this NEW CHALLENGE!