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Diego A Bolivar

Syretta T Massey

ENC 1101 9:00am-9:50am

November 30, 2017

Misinformation on the internet: The era of information

How can it be that in an era in which all information we need is at arms reach, it is also

the era of which we are the most misinformed? With the birth of the internet and the worldwide

web the rate in which people share information has skyrocketed to an unstable degree, to the

point that the information shared is not necessarily for educational purposes. While the internet

has the potential to be a useful tool for connecting people and spreading information, it has

become a tool for people to manipulate others. For these motives, misinformation on the internet

has also increased. Certain components of the internet like social media act as a breeding ground

for wrongful information to be made and spread. The main problem is that social media allows

any individual to create posts without verification, reaching millions of users with just one click.

Fake news can also affect many aspects of society including our politics and how they are

interpreted. But the worst part is that even politicians are being part of the problem and not part

of the solution. However, not everything may be lost, several organizations are fighting back to

keep the internet clean from false information and help people get the right facts. Additionally,

these organizations focus on giving to the people the necessary knowledge for them to recognize

unreliable sources without assistance. Misinformation on the internet is a huge deal for todays

and following generations since it creates a bubble of lies that will impact societies

reasoning, and the only way to fight it is by getting people to understand it, so they can learn to

take actions to prevent against it.


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The main catalysts of misinformation are social media platforms as they are able to

distort information since they are based on user input and anyone can share anything with

anyone. Currently, people are connected most of their time on social media, this makes them

vulnerable to many posts that people create on their pages that are left without verification from

credible sources. As people get used to the easy access to information that social media provides,

they forget about other more reliable sources of information which creates a problem, as

indicated Sole reliance on social media as a news source presents a variety of problems

including exposure to fake news via unreliable news sources and a propensity to consume biased

or "filtered" information. (Spratt). In this way, people that only check social media, regularly

end up not getting enough information to create rationale conclusions. Also, Spratt mentions

Many teens and adults are encountering misinformation and fake news on a daily basis via

social media and the Internet without being aware that the information they find is misleading or

wrong. This remarks the fact that many believe they are been granted rightful information when

they are just getting misinformed without them even noticing. The trouble social media platforms

bring to the table is not only that they act as a place where misinformation is created, but also

where is mainly passed around. Described by Burkhardt as, Social media platforms like

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are fertile ground for the spread of fake news. (Burkhardt, 4).

This reveals how social media platforms can act as a breeding ground where fake news is not

only they are created but also spread around from users sharing false information. Thus, people

are receiving untruthful facts from social media and this translate to many spreading lies to

others in a never-ending cycle.

In addition, fake news on the internet can also have an effect on politics and even affect

elections since deception of news and facts that benefit different political parties. In modern
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times, politicians work harder on their political campaigns as many people do not use the official

partys platforms as a source of information. Most people prefer the fast and easy access to the

internet and social media to learn more about the campaigns, proposals, and even personal life of

the candidates. This leads many citizens to support different parties or candidates based on facts

that are not true in nature. As stated, Statistics have shown that the top 20 fake election stories

of 2016 on Facebook were shared, Liked, or commented on 8.7 million times. (Affelt, 13). This

shows how frequently citizens are being misled by false stories on the internet that affect their

perspective of different political parties. Also, most of the information available on the internet

in term of politics is created to appeal to emotions rather than to truthful facts. Politicians know

that people on the internet prefer to entertain themselves, not to get educated. In this way, it is

more important for politicians make comments that have higher resonance on society instead of

commenting on factual, less interesting, political proposals. According to Spratt, Recognizing

that the manipulation of emotions is becoming an integral part of politics and reporting is a

crucial step toward being able to create an intellectual separation between facts and emotions

when consuming information. (Spratt). As presented, people in overall tend to follow more their

feelings, since they expose themselves to bias political ideologies that they are agreeing with and

dissing opposing political parties or candidates. Another problem is that many individuals and

groups also take advantage of the elections to gain views and followers. As elections are times in

which most people are focus on any news that involve the candidates and their parties it is easy

for fake news on the topic to spread and become popular. Money is an important factor on the

issue as most of the time when a news criticizes just one party candidate is because there is an

interest involved. It is explained that Fabricated news is expressly disseminated for the sake of

earning money from clicks and views, and it is also used to mislead and derail. (Cooke, 1). In
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politics, there have always been corruption and interest, but the internet has made the range of

people involved in this activity even higher, thus being more people affected by it. The internet

plays a key role in todays political world since it allows political parties to interact more with

voters through the internet, changing voters perspective of their own or other parties images

without much effort.

On the other hand, certain organizations have gathered their resources to combat the

spread of misinformation on the internet by giving away tools to check and correct fake news

that are being shared on the web. This organizations goals are to help create awareness of the

mishandling of information by wrongdoers that make false allegations for personal or monetary

purposes. One way these organizations are approaching the problem is by talking directly with

the owners of the online platforms that allow the erroneous information to be spread. By doing

this, they create awareness on the issue to the people that can have the power to solve it and they

also offer their services as they know how to make the change happen. Affelt gives a good

example by stating that, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said it was pretty crazy to

suggest that Facebook could have influenced the election The company has developed a fact

checking network by partnering with media organizations (Affelt, 13). This confirms that

something is being done in order to reduce the spread of misinformation on the internet by

illustrating how popular web pages such as Facebook are jumping into the fight with solutions.

What may seem like a 21st-century issue has also been a problem long before. Organizations that

make fact checks have been in existence before the internet, but with the invention of the

internet, the availability of information has increased since it is easier to access than ever before.

Because of this, fact-checkers have to be in overdrive in order to process all the accessible

information and approve if the facts that are being shared are reliable. As mentioned, The fact-
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checkers have been doing this good work for years, but they're more newsworthy now because

there are just so many more lies to confront. (O'Leary). This demonstrates how fact-checkers

have been in the business of fact-checking for a long time now. They may have the experience

and knowledge, but now they just need to adapt to a changing more challenging playing field

that is the internet. But the only role for organizations such as factcheck.org is not to just take

all the

responsibility to

check everything,

but also teach

people how to

make sure their

own facts are right.

In support of the

matter, Spratt

states, With

information access

becoming increasingly easy via technology the role of teaching people of all ages how to

evaluate information quality and authenticity is now of equal or even more importance than

providing access. (Spratt). Meaning that people need to take action on their own on part with

fact-checkers to reduce the amount of fake news. Because of this, people need to learn how to

identify and react misinformation on the internet.


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In conclusion, a lot of attention is needed to tackle one of todays biggest social, political

and technological issues. The problem of misinformation on the internet affects many aspects of

society and changes the mindset of how people interpret information that they gather on the

internet. This problem is only to be defeated by educating and informing people about it by

giving them simple solutions such as to just not share false information around that hundreds if

not thousands of other people will see and probably also share around. Being part of the solution,

rather than the problem, is one of the most important things in this matter. The rightful thing to

do is to be a responsible person by double-checking whatever is being viewed on the internet.

Also, if encounter with any articles, social media post, and even media outlets that have fake

information to make sure let others know and not keep on sharing them. Getting accurate facts is

the key component to the making of a functional society due to the nature of informed and

educated who will take rational decisions on actual facts rather than on fake information.
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Work cited

Affelt, Amy. "Combating Fake News with a Human Touch." Econtent, vol. 40, no. 6, Nov/Dec2017, p.

13. EBSCOhost,

db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=

126048196&site=ehost-live.

Burkhardt, Joanna M. "Combating Fake News in the Digital Age." Library Technology Reports, vol. 53,

no. 8, Nov/Dec2017, pp. 5-33. EBSCOhost,

db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=

126274669&site=ehost-live.

Cooke, Nicole A. "Posttruth, Truthiness, and Alternative Facts: Information Behavior and Critical

Information Consumption for a New Age." Library Quarterly, vol. 87, no. 3, July 2017, pp. 211-

221. EBSCOhost,

db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=

123490513&site=ehost-live.

O'Leary, Mick. "Fact-checkers resist alternative facts." Information Today, Oct. 2017, p. 18+. Academic

OneFile,

db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.db16.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=

w&u=lincclin_mdcc&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA507185452&asid=2a1005cbe8aeb3645b1f6

71bf8ea5f8c. Accessed 26 Nov. 2017.

Spratt, Hannah E., and Denise E. Agosto. "Fighting fake news: because we all deserve the truth:

programming ideas for teaching teens media literacy." Young Adult Library Services, vol. 15, no.

4, 2017, p. 17+. Academic

OneFile, db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=linccli
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n_mdcc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA498995707&it=r&asid=1e9ee1556f90b8a2e3dbce7494c61df6.

Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

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