The Spread of False News

If you spend half as much time as I do on the Internet, you would know that popular media has a habit of being flashy. However, the stories found online can often be false- but because of how interesting they are, they catch attention and an audience. Even when posts are accurate (or sincerely intend to be), they can be biased and slanted. And that's human nature: people have opinions, and filter their words through these opinions, whether intending to or not. "We love to hear things that confirm what we think and what we feel and what we already believe." says Silverman, author of Regret the Error. It takes a conscious act to deliver information in an unbiased ways. It happens, it spreads, but when it's published with the intention of being false and people latch onto it- that's when it becomes a problem. Just take a look at last year's election! Writers were all over the place. "They got the most traffic and most traction." He states. Journalists were reporting all kinds of things, and if it was written well enough, people began to hear about it and believe the news they were saying. But why do people choose to spread fake information? You can make money out of it, you can bet people to like you, and at least, you can get people to notice you. You get attention, make a little bit of money, and convince people to be on your side of things. Sounds like a good deal, doesn't it? Silverman interviewed a man in his 20s, who replied with "people know that a lot of the content is false. But that's what works." And it does. Sometimes, content won't even say that it's true. It'll just be interesting enough for people to believe it. Memes, comic strips, that sort of thing. Short, amusing, and effective. If the news is appealing, people will talk about it. And this new plays such a major factor in how people view things and their reactions to ongoing matters. All sorts of data and research has been done, but in the end it's humans who write it and humans who read it, so you can't get definitive answers on the impacts and creation of the media: the truth is always changing. "[...]when we look at some of the data about the impact of misinformation, it's really significant." False information has effected the world in the past, and continues to do so. For the full interview, read this!