Fake News Overview

We live in a world where all humans have access to post and share on the media. And we got used to believing what we read online since it’s on “the internet” but over a billion stories have been posted ever since the internet was invented and most weren’t credible since everyone has the right to share. and so what ensures us that these stories, statistics, and news aren’t/wereisn’t fake? What is fake news anyway? Fake news is false information being published/ shared in the media. Several factors have led to fake news leading to various effects.

As Mark Twain once said “a lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes” mark twain never actually said that which proves the whole point. fake news has been a thing ever since mankind existed and what makes it so special is its speed in being spread. But what causes it to spread so quickly? Well, let’s start spread with the power of social media. The true power of social media is influence. Those who are exposed to the same fake news daily are more likely to be persuaded by it especially if it’s coming from an influential source. Now there are multiple ways phony information is spread mostly by the power law and bots. The power law is a studied pattern in social media Where The network holds a bunch of messages targeted to a certain audience which are replicated quickly. in other terms the audience is brainwashed indirectly so that they’ll believe a certain message. The 2nd way is through bots. Bots are programs that act like people to spread numerous fake news and messages on all social media platforms; especially emotional messages with an attractive headline title to capture the reader’s attention. For example; fake news about the coronavirus, conspiracy theories about the virus’s origin, and homemade remedies since the outbreak of this virus is traveling faster than the virus itself. Another example of spreading fake news happens in our daily lives and not in the media since people tend to prove their point with evidence that they’re not sure of.

Other than the factors contributing to the spread of false information, it really has a bad influence on people. Fake news misleads people and brainwashes them leaving them in fear and unsureness. It may also create forms of threats when to comes to political issues. For instance, during October 17th Lebanese revolution, civilians received several phone messages and one of them claimed that 30 motorcycles coming from “khanda2 l ghamiq”. This lead to the protesters blocking the highway that night. After that, they then knew that all that was fake news. Another example is the rumors spread about coronavirus. Some claimed that as a test for coronavirus, check if you hold your breath for 10 seconds. This drove people who weren’t able to hold their breath to panic and stress.

In conclusion, fake news is a scandal, it’s a trick the media creates to draw attention and tension creating many effects on the users. Now we can’t escape the media nor can we stop receiving fake news but we can always be one step ahead checking the resources, credibility, and so on.