The effect of fake news is impacting the age of social media: we should be smart readers

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On May 15 this year (2017), the well-known research organization [Data & Society] (https://datasociety.net/) published a research report on online false information and media manipulation. It mentioned that a group of people with evil intentions are taking advantage of the current media ecosystem to attempt to manipulate the framework and context of news reports and spread their ideas through topic setting.

Fake news is inseparable from the media business model.

Fake news (Fake news) is false information deliberately spread in the form of traditional news media or social media, with the purpose of misleading the public and bringing political and economic benefits.

In order to increase traffic in exchange for advertising revenue, both traditional media and new media are eager to pursue various content that is easy to spread and exaggerate, so they are increasingly relying on fake news or reports full of scandalous content. Knowing that this approach is wrong, the media industry is unable to resist, and some even begin to sink.

Of course, it is also because these malicious organizations are too arrogant in attacking the media and their manipulation methods are becoming more and more crude. This not only allows fake news to circulate everywhere, but also reduces the credibility of mainstream media in the eyes of the people, and makes people feel disgusted.

After reading this, you may want to ask: What exactly is fake news?

Paul Chadwick, editor of the British “Guardian”, believes that so-called fake news refers to false content that has been deliberately fabricated by intentional people and packaged and presented in a documentary manner. The purpose is to mislead the public into accepting fictional events as facts, or to question facts that can be verified.

This also reminds me that the [Reuters Institute for Journalism at the University of Oxford, UK] (http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/) recently released a research report on global news consumption trends. The report surveyed more than 70,000 respondents around the world and found that global consumers’ trust in news media is generally not high, ranging from 23% to 62%. Even in the United States, which has always prided itself on a high degree of freedom of speech, less than 40% (38%) of the respondents said they can fully trust the media; and in our neighboring South Korea, the figure is even as low as only 23%, which is evident from this.

Many people point to Facebook as the culprit for this wave of fake news, believing that this company with 2 billion members only cares about making advertising fees, but does not fulfill its responsibility to control the situation. In order to prevent fake news from continuing to circulate on Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, Facebook not only spent US$14 million to develop a fake news verification mechanism, but also cooperated with the [News Pollution Prevention and Control Foundation] (http://www.fam e.org.tw/), Taiwan Media Watch Education Foundation and News Helper work together to combat fake news.

In order to prevent the spread of false reports, Facebook officially posted [Tips for identifying false reports] (https://www.facebook.com/help/188118808357379) on its website, hoping to help the majority of netizens stay away from the interference of these fake news.

These ten principles include:

• Be skeptical of titles.
• Pay careful attention to the URL.
• Investigate news sources.
• Note the unusual formatting.
• Check photos.
• Check date.
• Check the evidence. *See other reports.
• Is the report just for Bojun’s smile?
• Deliberately fabricated report content.

Looking at these ten tips for identifying false reports, there are actually no very complicated requirements. They can be said to be very basic principles of interpretation. But you may be curious-why do we still believe fake news many times when we see it posted on Facebook or LINE?

The reason is that fake news today has become more sophisticated.

The research organization Data & Society has sorted out three common types of fake news for everyone:

1. Real issues that don’t deserve as much attention as they’re receiving. (Although it is a real incident, it does not require too much attention, such as Trump’s 2016 presidential election strategy, criticizing Hillary for publishing the contents of all letters.)
2. Propaganda is weaponized speech that mixes truthful, deceptive and false speech, and is designed explicitly to strengthen one side and weaken the other.
3. “Disinformatzya” is trying to pollute the news ecosystem, to make it difficult or impossible to trust anything. (It does not choose pros and cons, not to convince readers, but deliberately disrupts the environment of rational discussion, such as deliberately using offensive words to anger the other party.)

Living in an era of fragmented information, attention has become a rare currency, so everyone only pays attention to the title or the first paragraph of text. Usually, based on the mentality of rushing or novelty, without carefully considering the source and context of the news, they rush to share it with their circle of friends. In this way, it is easy to fall into the trap of spreading rumors.

Therefore, when reading online news in the future, you must first determine whether the information comes from a credible unit. If the report comes from an unfamiliar organization, you may want to pay special attention! Pay attention to the background of this organization, or have reasonable doubts about the motivation of posting. In addition, some false information often uses photos of real people to appear fake, so everyone should pay special attention to avoid being easily confused.

If you want to be a smart reader (especially a viewer, reader or listener of mass media), you must strengthen your Media Literacy (Media Literacy) ability. According to Wikipedia’s explanation, “media literacy education” or “media education” does not specifically refer to media professional education that trains media practitioners. The main target of education is all citizens. The educational goal is to cultivate the ability of all people to think critically and produce information, and to [interpret] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:How_to_Spot_Fake_News.pdf) all media information from a critical perspective.

Associate Professor Chen Shunxiao of the Department of Journalism and Communication at Fu Jen Catholic University (https://axiao.tw/) also reminds everyone that citizens are not only readers who have the right to receive information, but also communicators who have the right to produce and send information.

★ Photo Credit: Kayla Velasquez

★ Article source: This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of “English Island” magazine

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