Many people take what they read online at face value. To avoid spreading (or reading) fake news, you’ve got to ask yourself a few questions first.
It’s not Google or Facebook that spreads “fake news” it’s us, the people, through sharing links. The way to stop the spread of “fake news” is to start using a little common sense. If we expect Google and Facebook to stop us from being able to spread what they deem to be “fake news”, we run the risk of our news becoming censored, which is not a good thing.
Imagine if the Internet of today existed during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq and the supposed WMDs that that country had. The US government was lying about their existence and all of the news outlets went right along with lie. What if a news outlet reported that WMDs didn’t exist in Iraq? That article would have been branded as “fake news” today, since the overwhelming consensus was that WMDs existed in Iraq. That article wouldn’t have been allowed to be shared and the news organization providing that news article would have had its ad revenue removed by Google and it would no longer appear in Google searches, effectively putting that news organization out of business.
Do you see the danger here? Well it’s happening today right before our eyes with independent news organizations getting advertisements pulled from their videos on YouTube, getting demoted or delisted on Google searches, etc. Inflicting the kind of damage that puts these independent news organizations out of business, leaving us stuck with the Mainstream Media as our only “true” source for news. How convenient for the Mainstream Media, and inconvenient for the rest of us.
It makes one wonder if this whole “fake news” histeria wasn’t created by the mainstream media itself as a way to silence its competition. Hmmmm.
Source: Stopping the Spread of Fake News Isn’t Facebook’s Job—It’s Yours
