Fake News: The rising evil of society.

why are people so prone to fake news, and why is there such a huge increase in misinformation on web?

There are a lot of interesting academic researches going on in digital media about the same. False or unverified information spreads just like accurate information on the web, thus possibly going viral and influencing the public opinion and their decisions. Fake news and rumours represent the most popular forms of false and unverified content existing online that should be detected & treated as soon as possible for avoiding their dramatic effects on people and democracy.

Fake news is highly dangerous for all and thus, it should be detected as soon as possible for avoiding the tragic effects.

Practically, It would be really unreal for government to hire crowds of professional fact-checkers to find and deny all the false content on social media. But what if the people themselves could do this? can’t people themselves examine the authenticity of news websites? However, researches indicates social media users don’t do a good job judging the reliability of news themselves?

An annual Ipsos survey of more than 25,000 internet users was conducted in 25 countries.According to the survey, Eighty-six percent of Internet users have been duped by fake news — most of which was spread on Facebook. Fake news appeared to be most prevalent on Facebook, but also appeared on YouTube, blogs and Twitter. The results showed that people in Egypt were the most guarded while participants in Pakistan were the most sceptical to fake news.

Respondents said they want both government and social media companies and news organisations to put off these activities, which are contributing to a growing distrust of the Internet as well as negatively impacting economies and political discourse.

The conditions under which this survey was conducted was somewhat different from the conditions of real life. Still, the findings provide a great clarity on how people interpret and engage with news they come across online. For the news organizations that often rely on their brand name to maintain trust in their audience, this study suggests that how people perceive their reporting on social media may have little less to do with the brand name and more with content. The survey also looks at the changes occurred in amount of fake content circulated on social media. The study suggests that Since 2016, level of false content on Facebook has dropped drastically but it has risen comparitively on Twitter. Still, people continue to believe , comment, like and share such misinformation. On Twitter, material from fake news sites was shared more in last couple of years.Even as the number of fact-checking outlets continues to grow globally, researches of their impact on misinformation have provided not so great results.

Deepakshi Seth.