Current Events #6 (MP2 #2)

     In the age of modern news the ways one can receive information about the news are very diverse. Not only is there a choice in the source (choosing if you want your news from CNN, Fox, ABC, etc.) but there is choice in the medium. You can receive news conventionally through TV, through news websites online, or through social media to name a few mediums. While news on TV news comes from trusted or established news sources on social media news is not regulated and it can come from any source. This may include fake sources which have become more prominent in recent times.
     Fake news can be very damaging since people can be mislead into believing false information without realizing it and have a misconception on a topic for a long time. Fake news is especially effective when it caters to the political bias of the viewer. We have seen this in use on Twitter during the 2016 elections. Russia's Internet Research Agency is accused of interfering in the elections in favor of Donald Trump by creating troll accounts posing as angry Americans. At first posts made by these accounts were stale since the trolls were just learning how to use social media but as time passed the posts became more effective. They became more humorous and aggressive in their posts and were able to make certain topics trend. After the San Bernadino shootings Russian trolls fueled the fury of the gun control issue on both sides of the argument on Twitter and Discord. The effects of the trolls can be seen internationally as well. On the day before the BREXIT vote (a referendum held by the UK to determine whether it should remain in or leave the EU) Russian trolls helped get the #ReasonsToLeaveEU hashtag trending on Twitter. While the results of BREXIT were likely unaffected by this meddling the results of the US 2016 Presidential elections likely were. However, the extent to which the results were influenced is hard to determine.
     My personal reflections are that in an age where information is widely available we must be careful to check where we get our sources from. Despite the fact the Internet has broadened the choice of source and method of news it has made the possibility to receive false news larger. This is expected as online it is easier to put out news than on TV so some with malicious intent will misinform. In response to this we need to focus on fact checking the news more. If something seems off  in a news article the response should be to check its accuracy by looking at other news related to the same thing from other reliable sources. Instead of getting news solely based on what caters to our political bias we must consider news that is not influenced by bias, news that is of an independent source that may not always sound good to your political values but is accurate and truthful. In the age where fake news is a threat it is more important than ever to make sure the populous is well informed with truthful information and the way to do this is by making fact checking a common practice.

Works Cited:

Jones, Rory Cellan "Tech Tent: What was in Twitter's troll data dump?" 19 Oct 2018. Web 19 Oct 2018

<https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45918826>

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