Spotting Fake News Is As Easy As 1,2,4

Remember when Facebook was that place where your mom could share that ridiculous article she just read and you weren’t immediately suspicious that it was written by some hacker in Russia ? Ahh, simpler times. In a time where everything that’s read and shared by everyone on Facebook is greeted with skepticism, it’s vital we […]

Senate hearing draws united front on social media’s role in foreign influence

At a United States Senate meeting last Wednesday, members of both parties questioned social media executives about the scope of foreign countries’ ability to use social media as a weapon against democracy. First, I wanted to step back and share our view of Twitter’s role in the world. We believe many people use Twitter as […]

Facebook’s World, One World

No matter how massive social media has become over time, we believed for a long time that we all could have the presence we wanted on our social media profiles. We believed for an extended period of time that what we wanted made public and private on our profiles remained this way. However, as we […]

Authenticity of the Facebook Narrative

I started paying attention to the social media hearings when Jack Dorsey tweeted out his opening statement. I had never analyzed social media, but specifically Twitter and Facebook’s roles in my life. Were they meant for me to see all offering opinions? Was I supposed to be able to see hateful rhetoric? Was it my job […]

Gossip Magazines, Wikipedia, Facebook … What’s the Difference?

In middle school, I learned: 1. How to set up my Facebook account 2. Wikipedia was not a valid or reliable source. Now, the thought of using Wikipedia has vanished and yet the cite that I once used to communicate and connect with friends across the states — is now where we search for important news articles? Something doesn’t seem so right.

in the old days we got our fake news from Yahoo! message boards

— StockCats (@StockCats) September 5, 2018

The biggest question I have is: when did we abdicate our responsibility for gathering, investigating, and verifying news sources to sites such as Facebook? Growing up with a with a renowned journalist as a mother, a stepfather who was editor in chief of a top magazine, an activist stepmother, and a father involved in local politics, I was taught the only fake news that affected our society came from magazines that I would see online at the grocery store, such as US Weekly or the National Enquirer. But now, years later, the topic of Fake News has taken over my dinner table conversation.

So what should we do? It’s time for us take back our responsibility. Marc Zuckerberg, said in a CNN interview “We need to make it so that trolls can’t spread fake news. We can get in front of this.” But I think, Facebook can make their changes, so can Twitter, so can whoever — but it’s up to the consumers to find the truth. Check the website an article is from. Find out who wrote it, search who it is, and determine whether or not the information and sources are reliable and accurate. When it comes to the generation I’m a part of, we love instant gratification. An article on our newsfeed becomes the quickest way to grab a story. But it’s time we take a step back, become more thorough in our investigations of news stories and opinions.

I have noticed that when I’m away and view the world through social media my Facebook and Instagram are largely happy places full of positivity and Twitter is a poisonous sewer. And if I want to find out what actually happened today I go to the reliable news websites I always did

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) September 10, 2018

Four Steps To Expose False Information on Facebook

In times of social media, the gatekeeper roles of classical media are increasingly dissolving. It has never been easier to spread important news all over the world in the shortest possible time. However, this also applies to false information and hate speech. Especially on Facebook, the largest social network in the world, disinformation is a […]

How to Spot False News on Your Social Media

I have never liked to use the words “fake news” to describe inaccurate or intentionally false information on Facebook because those words have been thrown around a little too freely by people who don’t like to face the truth. However, there is a real threat of accounts spreading inaccurate information on Facebook. So, how do you […]

Trust the Blue Badge?

Edgar Allen Poe told us “Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.” When he coined this term it is hard to think he saw a world where images can be altered and people hide their identities behind a computer screen. So, if we are meant to question everything how do […]

World Wide Web: Facebook’s Lack of Authenticity

The creation of the World Wide Web has lead to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. These platforms allow people to share and post information while connecting and engaging with others. An issue that has followed the emergence of these social media sites is the authenticity of the information shared with its users. […]

Beginning to Unlearn Outrage

After the shocking revelation that social media were used to influence Americans during the 2016 election, the specter of meme-savvy Russian agents has haunted public discourse. Today there’s a kind of arms race to identify and oust troll-generated content on platforms across the internet. In May and June of this year alone, Twitter suspended over […]

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