The Fake News of the Mainstream Media and How to Avoid Them
We are in the era of Disinformation, an era where an flaming title and an article based on falsehoods, "untrue" stories or simply made up stories can be disseminated and even believed, You've probably met a lot of them, you've probably heard a lot about them, the Mainstream Media are the greatest exponents of this, yes, today we are going to talk about "Fake News".
Source
What's Fake News? In short, they are simple lies, false or manipulated stories that may contain manipulated and/or biased data to favor one politician or try to sink another. It's really just propaganda.
Fake News are dangerous because of the simple fact that they are easily viralized, nowadays anyone can press the "share" option to spread this false information many times without realizing it. Most Fake News appear in the digital world, because many people create websites in order to profit from these false and shocking stories. However, the Fake News have multiplied in the traditional media and in the case of the United States this is very much seen, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, among others are media that evidently have very clear political biases and therefore seek to create news that benefits a particular political wing, Fake news is bad regardless of whether you're left or right, however it's the left that takes the most advantage of it, the leftists can say whatever they want about Fox News but it's a fact, NBC, CBS and CNN have a lot more viewers together and these of course are leftists. This makes the conventional media very dangerous because of their audience and the ease with which their news can be shared because, as the world's largest networks, many people say things like, for example, "CNN said this, so must be true" when they are really manipulating articles, or they are media with a clear political preference as they demonstrated in the 2016 presidential elections and continue to do so today.
Fake or Bias? Both, if you are biased, you are not being objective, therefore there are data or details that are not taken into account when writing a story and not taking these details into consideration that could be essential to know the truth of a matter in question makes it a half-truth, a lie with bits of truth, that is Fake News, yet the media tries to deceive us trying to pretend they are impartial and objective, I have news for you, they are not.
"Fake news is very powerful. So much so that they can disrupt our ability to discern between truth and falsehood in the long run. The effect of'illusory truth' was studied in the late 1970s and it became clear that a lie repeated enough times would become truth. Moreover, it is easier to trust a popular lie than an unknown truth." Source
How to recognize a Fake News?
How to recognize a Fake News?There are several ways to recognize this type of news, it will depend a lot on the user and their criteria for recognizing and reporting them, some things to keep in mind are:
Clickbait: You have to understand something, a clickbait is simply a "method" to make you click on a link, thanks to an eye-catching title or shocking photo, most likely what you find once you click that "news" is not at all what you expected, however the creators fulfilled their goal.... Get your Click and therefore they earn money, don't pay attention to the clickbaits
Bias: If you are an objective person, this is very simple to detect, the use of a language, reviewing the sources of the data, if they give them, of course, is useful to verify the veracity of the news and to note if they are biased or if they are being yellowish.
Satire: This is not a bad one... As it fulfills its objective of being a parody and therefore being obviously false, the problem is that many people do not realize that they are satire and thus create disinformation, we cannot blame the web for the parodies, we must blame human stupidity.
Propaganda: Let's take into account something, to promote a propaganda or political agenda based on facts and data is not bad, what is wrong is to manipulate the data, to bring to light only those that benefit this agenda or of course simply to promote it by promoting it without any kind of logical or objective argument.
Check the Facts, Dates and Photos: Always remember to do your own research, check dates and photos that may be out of context, make sure the sources used in the article are reliable.
Look for the Same News in Other Media: Triangulate the truth, if you don't find information about the news in different media it's possibly false, besides this, reading the same news in different media gives you a better criterion and helps you to realize about possible biases that some media may have.
Consider your Beliefs: This is extremely important, we must keep in mind that we are human beings, it is very difficult to be objective always, we always have biases, this is why we must investigate further and verify data and sources.
With this in mind you will be able to recognize these Fake News more easily and thus not be fooled so easily.
Source
"If you have to repeat a lie, it’s best to limit the description of it, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, one of the study’s authors, who is also the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and a founder of FactCheck.org.If you have to repeat a lie, it’s best to limit the description of it, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, one of the study’s authors, who is also the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and a founder of FactCheck.org" Source
How to Fight the Fake News?
How to Fight the Fake News?
There is an article that talks about 13 possible solutions and their problems, I recommend reading it: Here is the Link, However, there are more ways to contribute to this struggle, such as dismantling arguments, for example, since explaining with facts and data why an argument is wrong and dismantling it will help other people to realize the disinformation that the article has, making news and objective articles that dismantle the lies that the media try to sell, trying to instill critical thinking are some of the options. In the case of Steemit, you have that power, you can be part of @informationwar and help the cause, to find out more: InformationWar Post. Not only that, young people are apparently the ones most exposed to the Fake News and yet they are the ones who are most informed about their existence, as we can observe Here, we will notice things like for example, that the reliability that people have towards the media in general has decreased over time, especially in this decade. Lies are fought with truths, it's the only way, and they can and must do it.
In short, do not fall into the trap of disinformation, investigate and investigate further to continue the search for truth, develop an objective thought and remember, information is power and like all power many try to use it for their own benefit. The Information War is real. And that's it, I'll catch you on the next post.
"War is 90% Information" - Napoleon Bonaparte
"War is 90% Information" - Napoleon Bonaparte| # | References | Titles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brookings | How to combat fake news and disinformation |
| 2 | Forbes | The Real 'Fake News' Is The Mainstream Media |
| 3 | MediaTrends | Fake news: cómo detectarlas mientras Facebook o Google siguen preparando algoritmos |
| 4 | The New York Times | CNN Corrects a Trump Story, Fueling Claims of ‘Fake News’ |
| 5 | The New York Times | How to Fight ‘Fake News’ (Warning: It Isn’t Easy) |
| 6 | Visual Capitalist | Here’s 13 Ideas to Fight Fake News – and a Big Problem With All of Them |
| 7 | WebWise | Explained: What is Fake News? |
| 8 | Youtube | What is Fake News? |
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