Fake news and Social Media

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Fake News
Introduction
The rise in popularity of social media in contemporary society has empowered individuals to be producers and publishers of content. As a result, people no longer rely on credible news agencies for information and news updates. Social media influencers and people with a big following on popular social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have become instrumental in the distribution of news. However, the downside of this development is that some news sources may not have the same credibility that the news agencies have. For example, they may lack journalistic training, legal knowledge, and relevant skills to evaluate their sources, determine the credibility of information, and assess the potential impact of the content they share. This situation is also exacerbated by the fact that news consumption patterns have also changed in today's society.
Today, people consume news every minute and will always be on the lookout for new information every other minute. There is pressure on news agencies and other content creators to keep publishing information and news to update their followers. All these developments have paved the way for fake news to spread out almost faster than accurate and credible news.
Fake news can be defined as any false or misleading information that is presented to an audience as accurate or credible news. The main objective of creating and spreading fake news is to injure or damage an individual's reputation or an organization. In other instances, the creators of fake news usually hope to drive more traffic to their websites or social media pages to be able to attract advertisers and make money through advertising revenue. While the phenomenon of fake news has been around for ages, its prevalence has increased with the growth in social media networks' popularity. Other factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of fake news include increased political polarization, confirmation bias, and post-truth politics. The actual impact of fake news can be seen in business and politics, where organizations, politicians, and political organizations have had their integrity dented through the spread of fake news about them.
Expert Opinions
The topic of fake news has also been of great interest in recent years to scholars, researchers, and journalists who have sought to delve into this matter to create a more in-depth understanding of the issues involved. Therefore, there exist a lot of published scholarly or journalistic materials on this topic highlighting diverse expert opinions on the subject. This section reviews some of these extant publications to illustrate the gravity of the problem while also highlighting some of the important themes and issues that have shaped the discussion in recent years.
Farhad Manjoo's article titled "How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth" that was posted in the New York Times on November 2, 2016, sheds more light on the fake news phenomenon. The article that was written shortly before the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections looks at the political ramifications of fake news. Politics in the U.S. has become engulfed in conspiracy theories that are often heightened by fake news on the internet (Manjoo). In the 2016 elections, the campaign period witnessed lots of fake news and propaganda being spread out through social media (Manjoo). The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, for instance, occurred during this period. The rumors of Russian interference n the elections were also rampant. Therefore, this article by Manjoo begins by assessing the potential impact of fake news on the campaigns and tries to project how the situation will be at the end of the elections after a winner is declared (Manjoo).
Manjoo discusses the echo chamber concept, which describes a situation in which information or beliefs are amplified and reinforced in a closed system where contrary opinions are not welcome (Manjoo). In an echo chamber, an individual will only be willing to listen to or read vies that they agree with while rejecting any opinions and views that are contrary to theirs. The echo chamber encourages political polarization and makes fake news more believable by people who hold a specific view n an issue.
Another article by Shyam S. Sundar titled "Social Media Users Must Start Checking Online News Sources" also examines the concept of fake news in online contexts. The article looks at the ways individuals consume and appraise online news media. Sundar, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, argues that social media users must always go a step further to evaluate the sources of the news and information they access on digital platforms (Sundar). He contends that the probe of social media will continue persisting into the future until traditional news agencies take back their place in news products and dissemination. Social media has taken away the credibility of the traditional media house and accorded it to social media users.
As a result, according to Sundar, social media users have become too trustful of social media platforms to the extent that they never question the credibility of the information they access through these platforms (Sundar). He advises that consumers must now develop stricter guidelines for assessing and evaluating the sources of information shared on social media. In his view, this is the only way that the war against fake news can be won.
Jennifer Forestal and Menaka Philips' article, "People blame Facebook for fake news and partisan bile. They're wrong," also adds to the conversation by bringing in some interesting views on the topic. In the discussion on fake news, it is always easier to point fingers at social media networks and accuse them of being the weakest link in the fight against fake news (Forestal and Philips). However, this article argues that this might be indeed a wrong way of looking at the problem. According to Forestal and Philips, fake news has always existed even before the era of social media (Forestal and Philips). It is only that social media and other digital technologies are making this problem more recognizable than before (Forestal and Philips). The authors argue that while social media plays an important role as the medium for transmitting fake news, technology is certainly not the cause of the problem.
Methods
In order to fully understand the magnitude of the problem, I also endeavored to gather primary data from young people that are frequent users of social media. The data was collected through a simple and short survey that had eight questions. The survey was distributed in person to university students within the campus. The tare population for this study was young people aged between 18 and 25. This demographic is the biggest on social media and is, therefore, more exposed t...