By Mossimo Perry
If you have searched for something on the web or have a social media account, you have most likely come across some form of fake news. Now fake news can be broken down into misinformation and disinformation which sound quite familiar but have different definitions. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information such as rumors, opinions, and information that cannot be backed up with factual evidence. Disinformation is a deliberate attempt to mislead you. Often this content is malicious which spreads suspicion and uncertainty amongst the population. Most of the time misinformation spreads faster than factual information because it appeals to the negative narrative our society wants to give off for everything. According to the article "How misinformation spreads on social media—And what to do about it", a tweet containing false information received far more engagement than the accurate tweet. Both tweets were released at the same time and within a 24-hour period, the accurate tweet still performed poorly compared to the false one. You can see how easy it is to read something containing inaccurate information just because it had a lot more engagement and gets pushed around social media. Here are a couple of ways you can detect and avoid false information on the vast internet. A very important factor in determining if the information is accurate is the source. Usually, sites with the .gov are quite reliable and accurate in whatever is said on the site. For example, pbs.org is a great source of information but leans more on the left side of political bias. Foxnews.com is quite the common source of news for a lot of people but did you know this source is rated 36.5 out of 64 for reliability and leans toward the right side of the political bias scale according to this 2023 interactive media bias chart? A source that is quite reliable and is pretty neutral when it comes to political bias is NBC news which scores 61 out of 64 for reliability. When searching for a good news outlet, you want to consider these things so your opinion on a matter isn’t falsely altered due to where you acquired your information. Consider who is speaking when reading the article: Is it a first-person perspective or does it have several views on the matter? If it does have multiple sources on different sides of the matter then it probably is more accurate than if it was just one person's opinion. How To Detect Bias In News Media says that we should “demand that those affected by the issue have a voice in coverage” and this is absolutely true. An article that has someone who was directly affected by the issue makes it 10x stronger and most likely more accurate as you have someone who witnessed the incident firsthand. Not having someone who is an expert on the situation leads to a lack of context. This means the article has not seen every aspect of the issue and not seeing all sides of the issue can be interpreted as misinformation. To wrap up everything said here, try to remember these few tips when surfing the web or scrolling through social media. Always consider where the news comes from as you don't want to listen to an outlet that has a reputation for speaking false and inaccurate information. Use your prior knowledge when questioning if something is true or not. You can even double-check yourself with a reliable source by doing a few google searches. And always remember that everything you might read on the internet does not mean it is the whole truth. Most news sources cover incidents just because of the public attention it brings.
1 Comment
Lynn Girven
2/28/2023 04:08:19 pm
Is it not interesting that disinformation spreads faster than corroborated information? I think many have become lazy or just want to reinforce their own views.
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