Fake news is probably one of the biggest concerns to candidates running for any government position. Not only for candidates, but for voters as well. The issue of fake news always seems to grab ahold or increase around the time of presidential elections. Last year, almost every candidate was complaining about fake news being spread around on the internet and also, you've guessed it, social media. Probably one of the biggest known haters of fake news is our very own president, Mr. Trump. Obviously here the issue isn't whether or not fake news is real because it really is everywhere if you pay attention. The news changes depending on which news channels or websites you get your news from. One of the main issues people are facing today is how to stop the spread of fake news.
Fake news is especially rampant on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and it is these platforms which have to make decisions on how to curb fake news. In the Room for Debate, How to Stop the Spread of Fake News, one of the ways mentioned is to hire human editors to determine what is fake and what is real. This honestly would leave so much power in the hands of a couple of people who could easily be biased. Others argue that we should leave it up to algorithms to decide, and while this sounds like it should work, algorithms still need to be trained to determine what is false and real. Lastly, one other argument made was that it should just be left up to humans to decide, to the users. I personally don't know if many people would be able to distinguish the difference knowing how hard it truly is to spot fake news. So the question here is, what is the best way to stop fake news? Can it be stopped?
I don't really think there's any true way that companies can automate the prevention of spreading fake news and as you mentioned in your post in would be inefficient to put humans in charge of filtering the output of information since the sheer scope of the internet makes it nearly impossible to manage everything at the same time. The best way to "stop" fake news would be for everyone to actually call out when a journalist or news organization has published news that has been defined as fake or misleading in order to let them know that there's actual consequences which would discourage them from pumping out this type of content. The second way would be for people to not solely focus on a single post about a topic, look at multiple articles put out by different outlets who are on both sides of the political spectrum, and then draw a conclusion on their based on the information they have gathered.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I don't think there's any best solution to stopping the spread of fake news. There are already plenty of ways to get rid of fake news. They're not always 100% effective, but there are ways.
ReplyDeleteFake news will probably never stop. The Internet and technology is so vast, and so many people have access to it. There will most likely always be some sort of fake news going around, and society will just have to live with that.