Fighting the Fake

Posted on by Elizabeth Stewart

Amidst a world where social media sites track our every like, post, share and search, the publics’ privacy has never seemed less private. In fact, with the use of big data, bots, artificial intelligence and so on, the line between private and public has never been more blurred. We unknowingly ‘accept’ the terms and conditions of these sites and hope that corporations carryout what’s necessary for personal privacy and public safety. Unfortunately in the past few years, numerous social media platforms have fallen prey to fake news, information warfare, illegal advertisements, and Russian high jacking. Our society faces both Russian infiltration of social as well as non-Russian technical and policy challenges that exploit structural weaknesses in the way these platforms handle our data as a whole. Siva Vaidhyanathan, highlights the fixed illegitimacy of Facebook in the following article:

The significant size and reach of platforms like Facebook demand that their leaders practice more transparency, security and a deeper commitment to defending against structural vulnerabilities. Facebook also educates its users to combat fake news by promoting ‘how to spot fake news’ links on their site: https://www.facebook.com/help/188118808357379 These tips include looking at other reports, considering the photos, checking the evidence, and watching for unusual formatting. Facebook also uses signals from the community in attempts to identify potentially unauthentic and misinformed content. Joh Ward claims that beyond Facebook, the US media fell for attention hacking:

The Facebook problem lies in that we instinctively believe Facebook content as verified. As we engage with content, we should check the source, dates and statistics, and actively read beyond the article. As consumers become the journalists and social advocates, it becomes our responsibility to fight fake news, as well as the exploitation and corruption of the internet. Zeynep Tufekci said it best:

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