What is Fake News? It is the news made public by the media, which is fundamentally not true, that misinforms. Probably the most common type of fake news is the so-called clickbait, which is nothing more than an unfair attraction of readers for profit. This type of information the average Internet user encounters quite often, although he does not always notice it. Therefore, they differ from real news in terms of data content. Messages in them contain untruths or are unverified data, often of a sensational nature, intended to cause shock and disinformation. Sometimes they are created for fun – for the desire to gain publicity by the people publishing them, other times they are to serve a predetermined political purpose, obtaining financial benefits or playing an opinion-forming role. They appear for various reasons, sometimes to interest and gain more readership or listenership. There are also those that are supposed to be just a funny joke. At first glance, it seems that although fake news can be misleading and make it difficult to obtain reliable information, it is only a harmless phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fake news – even though that it is mainly associated with rumours and rumours – can be a dangerous tool of disinformation, used to manipulate and deliberately mislead the public. The problem, however, is that not everyone immediately realizes that it does not have much to do with the truth. Paradoxically, despite access to the network and the ability to independently verify many messages, we very easily succumb to fake news. Many network users and news recipients do not want to verify the information they receive, so they believe what others say and write. Some of the information cannot be verified by yourself. Especially if they concern important people in the country or in the world, politicians, celebrities; It is also difficult to verify some medical "novelties", so there is a lot of fake news about health, medicine, medical treatments.
Here are few examples of fake news
Click on that fake photo of Donald Trump to see more
Social media has become convenient space for creating and disseminating unverified information for several reasons. There is no functioning law that would check the quality and would control the information posted. (Similar law that is in place in professional services and agencies Information.) In the case of Facebook, the problem is also the operation of algorithms whose task is to select content attractive to users. And for the reader the most attractive are those materials that are consistent with his views. In this way, Facebook creates a kind of information bubble, separating users from people with different views, contributing to their radicalization. Twitter's problem, on the other hand, is fake accounts run by people or with the help of appropriate software, used between others in election campaigns.
The oldest fake news was a radio broadcast about the attack of Martians on our planet. On Sunday, October 30, 1938, Americans listened to a terrifying broadcast on the popular program 'Chase and Sanborn Hour'. It was an account of an irresistible alien invasion. Millions of people panicked. The idea and implementation belonged to the host - Orson Welles. To authenticate the material, he used, among others, a recording of the Hindenburg airship disaster. The program was an adaptation of a novel by H. G. Welles and was also announced as such. Still, not everyone has heard or understood the information.