https://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/russia-fake-twitter-facebook-posts-accounts-trump-election-jenna-abrams-20171103.html
The internet is an amazing tool and has transformed society and how we communicate in profound ways. However, what happens when we begin to place trust in people or personalities we have no connection with at all. Social media is increasingly playing an important role in shaping publisc opinion. More people are getting their news and information from Facebook and Twitter than legitimate news sources. https://www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/ This is increasingly dangerous when we know there is a lot of incorrect and misleading information online.
For this post you have two options.
- Find a recent trending article/story that has been found to be misleading or outright false. Read the article and tell us what the controversy is surrounding it.
- Find out what is the phenomenon behind people who are not convinced by facts. Fake news retractions get less attention than the fake stories.
USE SNOPES.com to see if a story has been debunked.
Christmas has become an extremely secular holiday that people obsess over as soon as the Halloween frenzy calms down. People start setting up their Christmas decorations in November with maybe an autumn leaf or two with a turkey and a fake cornucopia. Christmas a vibrant season and the holiday cheer is almost overwhelming. The stress that comes from Christmas shopping on Black Friday, from planning who's seeing who over the break, from rushing around to hit the sites of the season like the Rockefeller Center tree and the Bryant Park Christmas Village, none of it is so negatively frenetic that it would cause a ban on Christmas music. The Babylon Bee, a satirical Christian news site wrote that President Donald Trump banned storefront Christmas music before Thanksgiving with a landslide vote in Congress in favor of this restriction (435-0 and 100-0). The extremity of this article reveals it erroneous nature. A punishment of 20 years in prison after being taken to a "secret CIA facility for questioning" is ridiculous for something so minuscule. Snopes assures this predicament that The Babylon Bee is posting fake news. Unfortunately, our society believes a lot of what they read online. The satirical site prides its 71,131 Twitter followers, 32,621 Instagram followers, and 349,749 Facebook likes. I believe this is due to the mere fact that people are too lazy to double check their sources. We have grown up in a generation in which "googling" information will always be right because the Internet and the devices we use to access it are "Smart" and reliable. While the benefit of the doubt is not always a bad thing, it is our responsibility a digital citizen to be honest online and ensure the honesty of others.
ReplyDeleteGood Teresa. I'm worried now because we're starting to label everything "fake news".
Delete"Playing Christmas Music Before Thanksgiving is Now a Federal Crime." The Babylon Bee. 7 Nov 2017. .
ReplyDeletehttps://babylonbee.com/news/playing-christmas-music-thanksgiving-now-federal-crime/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.snopes.com/nasa-warns-nibiru-is-headed-straight-for-earth/
ReplyDelete"NASA has warned of imminent disaster due to the trajectory of another planet that will intersect Earth's orbit." The name of the other planet is named Nibiru or "Planet X". This planet has been predicted to crash into the earth ultimately destroying it. This many be terrifying however it is false. Dr. David Morrison, proves that "Planet X" Does not exist.
What were the ramifications of the article? Was it widely shared? Did people believe this was going to happen?
Deletehttps://www.snopes.com/girl-disconnect-life-support-plug-in-charger/
ReplyDeleteAn article was circling the web last week that accused a 26-year old girl of going to the hospital to visit her very ill grandfather and then unplugging his life support to charge her dying phone. The story was published on a website called Buzz Flare and sparked a lot of controversy over how bizarre this incident was. “Reports” and news like this has been widely popular in recent years and can be very misleading who may not realize that these sites are misleading.
Good Alex. Hysteria is created by what seems to be callous behavior but the fact that it didn't happen does not seem to affect people.
Delete