Have You Been a Victim of Fake News?

Kyra Barksdale
kb764715@ohio.edu


Fake news? In my opinion, it's something we honestly will never be able to get rid of. Our society has endless opportunities of finding out the current news story at our finger tips. At the same time, we have the ability to release news straight through our finger tips. These apps, such as Twitter, are contributing to the way we receive news and in certain cases...FAKE NEWS.

I remember a time where I was a victim of fake news. I had just got home from my classes on a rainy spring day. I was sitting in my bed, scrolling through Instagram and I seen a post from this very popular user that is always posting current news. This post had led me to think my favorite celebrity crush was going to have a child on the way. I got to digging to find out some more about this story, come to find out that this news report wasn't true at all. That is when I stood there, jaw dropped and humbled by the fake news this world is constantly giving.

According to nbcnews.com, lies spread faster on social media than the truth does. I totally agree with this statement because it happens all the time to me, my family and friends. Come to find out, people are quicker to repeat something that's false rather than what's true. Twitter is a prime example of this, it's reported that false news gets more re-tweets and likes than real news. One main reason as to why, is because ordinary people are being able to get this blue check mark next to their name; being known as verified. At first, only celebrities, famous people and news stations had these verified accounts. Now ordinary people, like the kid sitting next to you in class, can have a verified account. Those accounts come with many followers who will retweet anything you say and cause your tweet to go viral. That's how fake news is becoming popular.. just through your finger tips.

                  

source: The Nicholls Worth

It's very important as journalists, that we are the ones who are always fact checking and relooking over our stories before we post them, eliminating any reason for our news to not be credible or falsify any information. Social media has a huge effect on transporting news of all sorts. As technologies continue to grow, it's going to be harder and harder to control the distribution of fake news. With this fake news phenomenon, it threatens journalists' credibility.