The night of November 8th, I sat numb with shock in front of my
computer until 2 AM, frantically refreshing search pages as news kept breaking—and
I know that I wasn’t the only one. Last week’s presidential election results surprised
many, setting off a frenzy of investigation within our media and news sources.
Before, it was taken somewhat for granted that polls were accurate predictors; that
our media would paint a portrait of the candidates and accurately report the
news surrounding each of them. Now, it seems that everything has been called
into question, and glaring inaccuracies in our media sources have been uncovered—in
particular the series of “fake news” that have been discovered on Facebook and
in Google search results.
Such fake news include (but are not limited to) headlines
proclaiming that Pope Francis endorsed Trump, or that famous public figures
such as Denzel Washington or Tom Brady also endorsed the Republican candidate.
They give fabricated reports of specific instances of racial violence that
could spark hatred and fear (for example, that two white men were set on fire
by Black Lives Matter members—whereas in reality the perpetrator was never
affiliated with BLM). On election night, one of the top Google search results
that popped up (when one googled election results) reported that Trump was
winning the popular vote, whereas in reality Clinton was winning the popular
vote while Trump pulled ahead in electoral votes. On the flip side, Facebook has also been accused of heavy liberal bias early on this year in the primaries.
On the surface, it seems almost ironic. Technological
advances in social media that (in theory) are supposed to increase
accessibility to news and keep the American people as informed as possible. So
why is there more miscommunication and discord between the media and the people
than ever?
I think there’s a couple of interlocking reasons for this.
See, because people rely more and more on social media to get their news, the
distribution of media has shifted from news and broadcast corporations to the
internet. By shifting distribution to the internet, anything can be considered “news”—meaning
that quality control can suffer. News that are filtered, accurately fact-checked,
and routinely distributed can be overshadowed Internet news and social media
websites. “News” on the internet can be anything—from fabricated articles to scathing
satire to pure sensationalist op-eds. Since news are no longer tightly
controlled and vetted for quality, articles could be incredibly biased or even
blatantly untrue, but still could be viewed as credibly “news” just because
they were viewed a million times on Facebook.
It’s not just the unregulated media playing a role in
trumpeting false information and breeding miscommunication, though. Oftentimes,
the staggering amount of news made accessible means that we can pick and choose
which kind of news we want to hear, meaning that we create an “echo chamber” in
which we conflate opinions on our circles as national opinion. (PEW research
says that liberals and conservatives are more likely to interact among
themselves and share news that supports their opinion). Confirmation bias is still prevalent.
Regardless whether the surge of fake news influenced the election outcome, its increased circulation can erode trust we have in each other and harm the communication of facts and information. So how do we avoid this? How can we tell what's real news and what's not?
1. Double-check the headline. If you see a questionable headline, google it. If the same news shows up across multiple reputable platforms (such as ABC, CNN, WSJ, etc.), then it's most likely to be real.
2. Take a good look at the source. Are they a credible website? Have they published fair and accurate media over the past few years? Also, a lot of fake news websites tend to spoof real news sources to trick their readers (abc.com.co is a fake news source, while abc.com is real)
3. Beware of the echo chamber. When I see that something on Facebook has 30K likes, or 400 shares, I instinctively consider it real news. But just because something is circulating widely on the internet doesn't mean it's accurate.
What do you guys think? To what extent do you trust digital news today?
