“Fake News”, the Other Pandemic
Fake news has been a rising issue over the past 4–5 years, the term seemingly emerging from President Donald Trump. Now, the term is a common phrase attached specifically to information (political or otherwise) posted on social media. Fake news is especially dangerous in the midst of a global pandemic and is creating a deep divide in the United States.
People seem to be just as susceptible to spreading fake news as they are to spreading coronavirus. It spreads easily, quickly and is incredibly dangerous. There has been a whirlwind of misinformation surrounding the pandemic since the beginning, and while it can sometimes be hard to find out whether something is true or not, it isn’t that hard.
In the beginning, it was hard to know what was true or not when it came to the pandemic. Scientists, politicians, and citizens alike had little to no knowledge about the virus. But as time has gone on, it seems like people just want to believe that this isn’t dangerous, that this is a hoax, or some sort of political game. Sometimes, it truly is easier to believe that than to accept that we are in the midst of a dangerous global pandemic.
But as Nature pointed out in this video , this spread of misinformation can too be battled. They suggest that we approach this misinformation the same way we approach the virus itself, if we can reduce the spread of misinformation by around 30%, it may be enough to substantially reduce the impact of that information. But how can we reduce the spread of misinformation?
Well, we just have to become better media consumers. One of the most important things we can do as consumers is to check your information before you share it. It takes seconds to fact-check a post, and in doing so you can stop the spread of false information.
71% percent of adults in the United States say they get their daily news from facebook, and this becomes a slippery slope. While Facebook is not the only social media platform people use for news, it is the most dominant.
For example, on average a facebook post is seen by 35% of your friends. If you have 100 friends, that equates to 35 people who may or may not believe and share that post to their friends as well. This equation goes on and on, showing just how quickly false information can spread on social media. While certain platforms are now employing fact checkers for public posts, they cannot possibly reach every single post. To become a better media consumer, we must do some of the work ourselves.
Another solution? Find a reputable, unbiased news source and share their information. It is relatively to find information that has already been fact-checked and is posted by a trusted source. If we continue to share that sort of information, we can prevent the spread of fake news and the impact that comes with it.
