Using telephone, smartphones, and chat messengers are not the only way of communication. Social media is taking place as well. We now talk to our friends, family, business persons and other people far away from us via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and much more. Nowadays, we are also getting many news updates from social media sites. So, as we can see that social media is also working as the newspaper and TV news channel. However, the number of fake news on social media is also increasing. Sounds weird right? You can also consider it as a rumor.
Let me define. You logged on to Facebook and suddenly saw there was a news headlined with “Famous Actor Died Last Night,” “Female Actress Commits Suicide” and stuff like that. In this article you shall learn something about the fake rumors over social media:
What to do About Fake News on Social Media?
A Big Problem
Recently some fake news broke out on the internet. Especially during the election season in the USA. There was much false news on social media. One of the most viral news was headlined as “Pope is endorsing Trump for the Election.” It was completely wrong information. It also raised many controversies at the same time. Many people misinterpreted the news too!
An expert research analyst from Gartner Brian Blau quoted that, “I think until we start to define the issue more. Clearly, it’s open for a variety of interpretations. Users want to trust not only the providers but also the content they consume, and given the lack of fine-grain controls, we have to assume that some amount of fake news is being read and trusted, which isn’t a good situation for anyone.”
However, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg twitted, “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of what people see is authentic. Only a tiny amount is fake news and hoaxes. The tricks that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”
Well, Mark is technically right in that case. But normal human being always looks for the rumor or salacious writings that impresses or amazes them rather than an official news would do.
Effect of Fake News
Many people thought that Trump won the election just because of the fake viral news on the internet. People saw the viral story and it convince them vote Trump. Well, it can be true. Fake news writer Paul Horner quoted that, “I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posts a story about a protester getting $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up.” He had an interview with Washington Post.
On the other side, Mark Zuckerberg also said on his blog, the Facebook authority is checking the authenticity of the news that became viral during the election.
Google is also Under the Trap
Not only Facebook, but Google is also the source of fake news. So, when someone wants to know something urgently, they go for the Google search. When a false news appears on the Google, the searcher will read it and will get in confusion.
There are few more things to follow. As a social media user, you should not share anything that shows something unusual or unauthentic news. We have to be very careful about it. Fake news on social media is a very regular thing. Do not let the fake news convince you very easily. It won’t be any good. Always look for the real news from any real source. Now when you’ve learned this, you can also take a look and get some knowledge about internet security tips and cyber security tips, and in that case, you won’t look like a newbie using technology who believes in everything but actually doesn’t know how the cyber world works.