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Zafeen Arif
101180331
COMM 1007
April 02, 2019
Why fake news goes viral on social media?
Did your Facebook feed pop up with an article on the world is going to end in 2030? Did one of your friends tell you that there is a new insect that is going to kill us all? You might have heard these stories, but they are not true. In recent years, fake news has taken place everywhere on social media, most popularly Facebook. Fake news is created in order to receive the most clicks or shares, for this is how the fake articles gain profit. Whether it’s deeming a source as fake or calling out media that disagrees with one’s beliefs, it is everywhere. It plagues social media sites, leaving corporate leaders wondering how they can fix this major issue. This is where it has flourished and evolved into thousands of sites posting false headlines. Social media platforms such as Facebook has created a site where users could publicly share experiences from their lives. However, fake news takes advantage of this feature by creating headlines that grab the attention of one specific part of a larger audience. Therefore, Fake news goes viral on social media because it travels faster than any other fact-based news, it causes social media users to ditch privacy concerns and it can target individuals with false accusations and untrue accounts of events.
Firstly, fake news on social networking sites spread information faster than any other media. This is a real concern among the established News Media Outlets, as to how the fake news propagation be made down and slow. Besides causing those media outlets- the financial losses, fake news beings a bad name to the outlet, who is being quoted as the primary source of the news ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"jbXknhV6","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Shao et al.)","plainCitation":"(Shao et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":162,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/JRQ2VRN9"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/JRQ2VRN9"],"itemData":{"id":162,"type":"article-journal","title":"The spread of fake news by social bots","container-title":"arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07592","page":"96–104","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Shao","given":"Chengcheng"},{"family":"Ciampaglia","given":"Giovanni Luca"},{"family":"Varol","given":"Onur"},{"family":"Flammini","given":"Alessandro"},{"family":"Menczer","given":"Filippo"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Shao et al.) This is a kind- of much dangerous trend coming up. As some statistics show that the popular articles on social networking sites get much huge response as compared to the useful content on these sites. As much people get influenced by fake news, this also causes changes in the attitudes of the people, as they opt to behave in that specific manner ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"KYJHrmDU","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Shao et al.)","plainCitation":"(Shao et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":162,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/JRQ2VRN9"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/JRQ2VRN9"],"itemData":{"id":162,"type":"article-journal","title":"The spread of fake news by social bots","container-title":"arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07592","page":"96–104","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Shao","given":"Chengcheng"},{"family":"Ciampaglia","given":"Giovanni Luca"},{"family":"Varol","given":"Onur"},{"family":"Flammini","given":"Alessandro"},{"family":"Menczer","given":"Filippo"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Shao et al.) No, just this being a short term response, this eventually turns to be a habit. A person's moral values also become at stake- if he continues to follow such sites for more than a year or so. This manner is disastrous, as it has the ability and the potential to change the national narrative or modify it to a certain extent. If just the financial outcome is the purpose of spreading fake news, it must be broadly curtailed. As it is a threat to every individual’s moral and every states national narrative.
Secondly, with the time one stands into the world of Social Media, he becomes vulnerable to every threat. Whether it be a psychological threat, whether it be an emotional threat, or more recently whether it be a physical threat, as observed in the third world countries. It must portray itself as a useful tool, instead of bringing the personal life of anyone at stake ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"uVpxjxef","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Bakir and McStay)","plainCitation":"(Bakir and McStay)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":164,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/RRBY5SUF"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/RRBY5SUF"],"itemData":{"id":164,"type":"article-journal","title":"Fake news and the economy of emotions: Problems, causes, solutions","container-title":"Digital Journalism","page":"154–175","volume":"6","issue":"2","source":"Google Scholar","shortTitle":"Fake news and the economy of emotions","author":[{"family":"Bakir","given":"Vian"},{"family":"McStay","given":"Andrew"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Bakir and McStay). This is becoming a significant threat with every day coming up. To analyze this threat- have a systematic look on that. For example, the emerging religious- social phenomena, where everything is being attributed to religion. Such mega exposures of anyone's personal life can hugely impact on the social and religious factor at the same time. This is the reason as to why the extent of untrustworthy information on social media is concerning. This is a matter of increasing concern, that the time one steps in the world of social media- or in other words- the digital world the threats become significant. Except becoming advantageous in return, this world becomes a burden and a “blackmailer- sort” of a thing, for which it is unworthy to shake down your life- which is in most cases disastrous.
Thirdly, the impact of Social media has now taken the political surface too. With the elections in the United States, which claimed President Donald Trump as the winner, the debate has expanded. With some more recent elections in Pakistan ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"8a4HZ2p4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Giglietto et al.)","plainCitation":"(Giglietto et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":167,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/CUR4YVXF"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/CUR4YVXF"],"itemData":{"id":167,"type":"article-journal","title":"Fakes, news and the election: A new taxonomy for the study of misleading information within the hybrid media system","source":"Google Scholar","shortTitle":"Fakes, news and the election","author":[{"family":"Giglietto","given":"Fabio"},{"family":"Iannelli","given":"Laura"},{"family":"Rossi","given":"Luca"},{"family":"Valeriani","given":"Augusto"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Giglietto et al.) and in India (where the elections are due in May 2019), the political sphere of social media is new talk of the town. This is hurtling in a way that it takes away the right to vote- not in a classic sense of voting, but in a more sophisticated way, where one has been already influenced, before getting into the polling booth. If the USA, the mother of democracy has been shackled with such malicious attempts, then what about the rest countries (mainly the not so digitalized ones). If one analyzes this perspective of the malicious Facebook propaganda- this has far-reaching impacts. None of them- every social media user will come to the both with a mind so attentive towards his future. This is where the problem will generate and will go too much far. No one in the upcoming generations will respect democracy, resulting in a mass draw down of political systems all around the world.
References:
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Bakir, Vian, and Andrew McStay. “Fake News and the Economy of Emotions: Problems, Causes, Solutions.” Digital Journalism, vol. 6, no. 2, 2018, pp. 154–175.
Giglietto, Fabio, et al. Fakes, News and the Election: A New Taxonomy for the Study of Misleading Information within the Hybrid Media System. 2016.
Shao, Chengcheng, et al. “The Spread of Fake News by Social Bots.” ArXiv Preprint ArXiv:1707.07592, 2017, pp. 96–104.
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