Yes, the invention of Internet is amazing and we have been talking about how they help businesses, improves life, etc.
You see how they always comes together? So if there is a good side, there will definitely be the bad.
The Good & Bad.
Positive & Negative.
Pros & Cons.
You see how they always comes together? So if there is a good side, there will definitely be the bad.
Source — meganeng4u.wordpress.com
Have you ever witness your parents showing and sharing some news/videos from Facebook and turns out that those are fake news?
For me, yes. Very frequently.
Source — tenor.com
But I wouldn't blame them though. The older generations is always the target of scams, spams and frauds as they are considered to be gullible and won't have enough exposure to knowledge in order to differentiate between the real and fake.
Today's topic will be on FAKE NEWS.
Source — independent.ie
What is Fake News?
Fake news is news, stories or hoaxes created to deliberately provide false information to deceive readers. The motive are to influence people's view, push a political agenda, or simply to attract attention. Fake news are usually done by imitating trusted websites like Channel News Asia by using same/similar names and websites URL.
Fake news is not new but has became more dangerous and difficult to identify. We got our news from trusted sources and media outlets where strict code of practice is required. With the increasing amount of social media platform available to us, everyone can publish and share any information online with the world! Everyone has the freedom to post anything without any restrictions and little regulation and editorial standards to follow.
For some people, fake news is easy to identify and they can just ignore them. However, for some people, they usually trust what they saw and never check if the source is trusted.
Not only my parents but recently I realised that some of my friends are victim of fake news as well!
The news on fires ravaging the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil is a serious concern that enraged everyone. Then immediately after the news, there has been Instagram post and stories circulating around stating "repost to donate $1" and "1 like = $1". Suddenly all of my Instagram stories is my friends sharing the post in hope of helping.
Below are 3 photos of how the Instagram post looks like.
Source — huffpost.com
What's more shocking is that even public figures starts sharing fake news and with the high number of followers on their social media, they ended up misleading millions on social media unintentionally.
Here is an example,
Source — news.abs-cbn.com
Cristiano Ronaldo posted this photo on his Instagram sharing information with his 184.9 million followers. It was later found out that the photo above was taken on 2013 in the non-amazonian state of Rio Grande do Sul by Lauro Alves, from the Brazilian agency RBS.
Even though the older generations are more prone to trusting fake news, they are clearly not the only victim of fake news!
This clearly shows how dangerous fake news is.
So, How To Avoid Fake News?
- Evaluate! One example would be always check the date and time of the actual post not the date of the post shared. Some people like to bring up past news to mislead people by thinking that it is happening at the moment!
- Google! Google is our best friend! But remember to always click on CREDIBLE news websites.
- One of the easiest way is to read news only from official news outlet. Go directly to credible news websites!
Source — giphy.com
Have you ever been a victim of fake news?
What are your thoughts on this?
Do share them with me in the comment section below :)
Hello Claire~ I don’t really recall any incident of me falling as a victim of fake news but I think largely is due to that we’re more exposed to different outlets — google, online newspaper sites etc! I agree with you that the older generations are more likely to become a victim of fake news as they might not be more tech-savvy. Hence, we should always communicate more with our parents/grand parents to educate them to beware of such news, and how they can avoid them :) Thank you for the tips and this interesting topic! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jiayi! Good to hear that you've never experienced being a victim of fake news! Totally agree with you that it is also our responsibility to educate our parents and elderly in our family. As more and more of the older generations are using Facebook as their main social media, they are using it more often than us. With only one type of platform, its is natural for them to believe the source easily.
DeleteHi Claire. This is definitely an insightful post. I have encountered several fake news myself and agree that everyone need to be more cautious and aware with what they are exposed to on Internet. Not only the older generations but anyone could easily fall victim to fake news and scams with enough persuasion and convincing. The tips that you have mentioned are definitely useful to take note but do you think Google is a safe platform to source for information as well? Do you think materials on Google might be fake as well? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Sean! Thanks for your comment! Yup, everyone could be the next victim without knowing. Google is one of the most popular search engine and we can get almost every information. However, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING can be found there! Which means that there will be fake information/news as well! So we do have to look out for credible sources/links. For example, some websites might imitate established organisation or news outlet so we have to check the url address!
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