How Fake News Has Plagued 2017

 FAKE NEWS: TWITTER EDITION




This article talks about how fake news has taken over and become a house hold term in our country this past year. So many of the devastating things that have happened this year such as, school shootings, natural disasters etc have been trivialized. For example, once news of the terror attack on London many "news outlets" and people took to social media to post about it. Many tweets were being posted making it look like it was the people who were involved in the attack but that wasn't the case at all. The article mentions "Another tweet, shared more than 35,000 times, was from a user claiming his brother and sister were missing. But the image shared was taken before the attack and a Twitter user said it was actually a photo of a younger version of himself." This explains just how deceitful some people are and how far they are willing to go for fifteen minutes of fame.


 






 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-42487425

During 2017 President Trump raved on Twitter about “fake news” and the sources that circulate these stories. He tweeted about his upcoming Fake News Awards in which he would rank the news sources that spread the “fake news”. “Subjects [which] will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media.” Many popular news sites such as; CNN, The Washington Post, News Week, ABC News, and the New York Times were all listed along with their “fake news” articles that got them a spot on the list. The Fake News Awards come after President Trump had a tough year fighting all of the biased media, false claims, accusatory statements, and negative news that swarms the media. Once all the fake news sources/stories had been listed, there was a list of all the accomplishments that President Trump has made since becoming POTUS.

An old news report about Floyd Mayweather's 2010 arrest appeared with a misleading title in July 2017.    The report stated that Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather's fight had been called off due to Mayweather's arrest. The fake news report featured video of Mayweather walking into a courtroom that was recirculating from his prior arrest in 2010. The video was published to the web site Top Buzz under the title “McGregor vs Mayweather FIGHT IS OFF! Mayweather ARRESTED!! LIVE FOOTAGE”. The report did show a real video, however it was used in the wrong place due to its absence of relevance to the 2017 McGregor vs Mayweather fight.

A story has gone viral claiming the “March for Our Lives’ permit application was made months before the Parkland shooting. The story was entirely based off of misunderstanding and initiates that the shooting was completely staged and the rally was submitted months before February 14th, the day the shooting took place. The story was based off of an email exchange between James Fetzer and Scott Earhardt. Earhardt, a police officer for Washington D.C. MPD, suggested the rally was permitted way before the school shooting that left 17 students dead. He stated in the email, “In reference to your inquiry concerning the March For Our Lives Demonstration, here in the District of Columbia on March 24, 2018. MPD received a permit application several months prior to the actual event, and there was several months of planning for this large event”. FellowshipoftheMinds took this information and ran with it before confirming if it was factual information. Earhardt later confirmed that he confused “March For Our Lives” and March For Life”. MPD confirmed that “March For Our Lives” Permit Application for the rally was received February 21, one week after the deadly school shooting.

Did Fake News On Facebook Help Elect Trump?

After the 2016 election, many feared that fake news articles spread on Facebook swayed the results of the election. It's a broad but reasonable leap to make: many purveyors of fake news aimed to help Trump win, and lo and behold, Trump won. Social media plays a bigger role in bringing people to fake news sites than it plays in bringing them to real news sites. More than one-quarter of voting-age adults visited a fake news website supporting either Clinton or Trump in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. Not sure if remembered any articles on facebook during the time of the election but if they were fake or real either way they got people to vote for Trump. Maybe they just target certain fackebook account. Weird how social media can control our minds.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/11/601323233/6-facts-we-know-about-fake-news-in-the-2016-election

“Illegal immigrants cast votes”

Apparently this picture was front 2004 that was used saying that illegal immigrants cast votes in Pennsylvania race. A conservative website falsely reported that “trucks full of illegals” voted in the special House election in southwestern Pennsylvania that saw Democratic candidate Conor Lamb score a shocking victory over Republican Rick Saccone this week. Several of trucks full with illegal immigrants pulled up at the polls across Pennsylvania. Not shocking if someone did pay them to steal votes. You know things like this do happen, but they were probably tricked to vote here in the U.S. and probably were lied to that they could stay over in the U.S. if they voted.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4087758/fake-news-this-week-trucks-full-of-illegals-didnt-cast-votes-in-pennsylvania-race/

 

Kim Kardashian West calls out fake news regarding husband, Kanye West. “Yeezy Mafia” posted a tweet stating that Kanye West “had stockists show up to an empty showroom and didn't present any apparel or accessories for his label's seventh collection because he couldn’t do what he wanted to achieve with the line”. Kim quickly shut down the rumors by tweeting multiple tweets stating, “How can a verified account represent Yeezy with false information," she wrote. "You do NOT work for Yeezy and NOT affiliated. How are you gonna believe an account that posts fake colorways”. But Kim wasn't finished there, she went on to add that the abandoned showroom was intentional and that the looks would be posted online on her Instagram page.

Information online is easy to post, instant to view and can be shared quickly to a wide audience. While this can seem like a great advantage, there are also dangers that arise with the shift to online platforms. Fake news is one of the biggest dangers to social media and how we receive our information. Eric Tucker, posted a picture of several buses, stating that on the bus were paid protesters being bused to demonstrations against President-elect Donald J. Trump fueled a nationwide conspiracy theory. Tucker's post was shared at least 16,000 times on Twitter and more than 350,000 times on Facebook. The problem with this was, Tucker didn't know who was on the bus.  He stated “I’m also a very busy businessman and I don’t have time to fact-check everything that I put out there, especially when I don’t think it’s going out there for wide consumption.” This is a prime example of how fast false information gets spread because people are reluctant to look into facts before sharing a story.

Suge Knight Death Hoax

Not sure if I heard about this article, but apparently it supposed to been shared over 50,000 times on facebook. I guess didn’t too many people care enough. This didn’t even make my instagram timeline and I follow a lot of people and blogs. Apparently he suppose to died over food.  Over a chicken bone. Now this is funny for someone to create a fake article about not only someone death, but dying over a chicken bone.  Someone was in desperate need for a story line, sorry try again because it didn’t reach 50,000 people. LOL!! The article goes on to quote a prison guard named “Jack Napier” as saying Knight was found dead in his cell after a fight with another prisoner over food. Jack Napier is the real name of the Joker given in the 1989 Batman movie.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/suge-knight-dead/

"Fake News" & Russia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/russia-fake-news-salisbury-poisoning-twitter-bots-uk

This story shows that Russia has created fake, thousands or maybe millions, of social media accounts to promote fake news, promoting different fake activities that were said to be going on in Russia.“Russia is using cyber as part of a wider effort to undermine the international system. This disinformation campaign is not just aimed at social media and the UK – it is intended to undermine the actual institutions and processes of the rules-based system, such as the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. We must do all we can at every turn to challenge this", said by Theresa May. 

Nuclear War "Fake News"

Yesterday, on April 29, 2018 at 6:35 p.m., there was a video posted on the local media by someone supposedly from BBC News, saying that there was a nuclear bombing happening in the United Kingdom, caused by the Russians' naval ships launching missiles. Quite a few people did not agree that the news was real, because no other news channel was talking about it, except the mystery man from BBC News. More male than female viewers believed that it may be false, the females were easily convinced otherwise. “Over the last couple of days we have had people contact various BBC bureaux, mainly in Africa and Asia, as they had seen the video on WhatsApp and wanted to check if it was a real BBC report,” a spokesperson for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/19/bbc-denies-reporting-outbreak-nuclear-war/

Statistics!

I was researching some statistics about fake news and after reading these, I have to share. They are going to blow your mind.
It is said that when getting on Facebook or Twitter, the user spots fake news more than once a day. With that statistic, "A poll conducted by Morning Consult for the Alliance in September found that 41 percent of people turn to their social media feeds for the news" (Peters, 2017). That doesn't make sense if you ask me! The last statistic I found that was so crazy to me was that only 16 percent of people sharing fake news were aware that it was indeed fake news!

https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/fake-news-concern/

Third Grader Schools Donald Trump About Fake News

"A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)", said by Donald Trump. A few days ago, a boy named Noah, explains to Donald Trump (via video recording), the real meaning of "fake news". Trump publishes a lot posts about people and "fake news", but his way of defining it is tremendously inaccurate. For being a third grader, Noah has a better way of explaining what fake news is. Therefore, Donald Trump should have gotten the memo, because a lot of people are besieging him about his defective posts.



http://time.com/5246643/jimmy-kimmel-trump-kid-fake-news/

Jordan Peele/Barack Obama: Fake News PSA

Fake news can be easily spread, even by editing the presidents videos. Jordan Peele shows a video, via internet blog, that he can easily pretend to be the president and spread out fake news. A lot of people are easily persuaded by the media, which can be kind of tricky to identify scams. Inadvertently, Buzzfeed is a company that is known for trying to disoblige fake news for views, most of their posts are erroneous. It is very defecating how technology companies can pretend to be someone else, fundamentally, to sabotage that person's well-being. The very advanced software that most companies are using is called "AL", a database that can identify or capture fake news. In Jordan Peele's video, he captured his self as Barack Obama using the AL software, which is awesome but an insult to the president. "The best shield against this sort of misinformation is instilling everyone with a little more media savvy", said by the author of the 

article.https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/4/17/17247334/ai-fake-news-video-barack-obama-jordan-peele-buzzfeed

General Kurt W. Stein & Fake News

A few days ago, Gen. Kurt Stein said something that was very cruel, "calling harassment "fake news"". The accusation caused Stein to get fired. Sadly, a few days before that meeting, he made some inappropriate remarks that caused him to be placed under investigation. So far, Stein has proved that he is no longer fit or worthy for his position as a General. "Leaders are responsible for establishing an environment conducive to mission accomplishment", said by LT. Col. Eric Dent. Not only was Stein fired but another General was fired, within 2 months of each other. Harassment should be took more seriously, no matter what the case is.


https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/04/16/general-accused-calling-harassment-allegations-fake-news-fired.html

The Originator of fake News!

1 The Originator of Fake News

               Even though President trump claims that he is the pioneer of the phrase “fake news”, the art itself was engineered by Russia between 1990 and early 2000s. Almost two decades later, the Russians employed this art effectively in trying to help the Republican candidate secure the presidential election. In his new book  The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Synder makes a bold claim accusing Russian leaders as the pioneers of the now prevalent social problem.

The Putin era employed the art of fake news to disorient the country’s society with the view of maintaining political power – Timothy Synder

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/5/17172754/russia-fake-news-trump-america-timothy-snyder
(1 image , 1 link ,1 quotation ,105 words )

Fake News: Donald Trump vs Russia

   

There has been rumors of Trump starting the "Fake News" phrase. Is it true? According to Sean Illing, the Russians started to use the slogan in the 1900s or 2000s era. Trump was just "borrowing" the phrase to win the 2016 election. In Trump, they found a particularly useful tool,  someone they could use to stoke America's internal divisions and subvert democracy (Illing). Basically, it was a win-win for both parties, Trump would become the POTUS and the Russians would gain more power in their country. It is kind of a twisted story, but a smart and well thought out plan. 

  https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/5/17172754/russia-fake-news-trump-america-timothy-snyder

Facebook: Are They Really Spreading Fake News?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17202886/facebook-fake-news-moderation-ai-challenges

"For Facebook, unwanted content can be anything from mild nudity to serious violence, but what’s proved to be most sensitive and damaging for the company is hoaxes and misinformation — especially when it has a political bent", said by the author, James Vincent. To identify "Fake News", Facebook created a system called "AL" to remove any fake content (mostly about politics and publicity stunts) that their users may post, or fake accounts. Coming to an agreement with Alex, how does "AL" delete content, but can't read? How does it determine what's fake and what's real? In article, it states that Facebook does a "Fake News Challenge" for AL. For example: the content about people eating "Tide Pods" as challenge was actually fake news. The content was very disturbing and outrageous, to a point that child viewers believed that the challenges were true. They started to do the challenges; some children and adults died and some got severely sick because Tide Pods aren't meant to be eaten. After it came to Facebook's attention, all content relating to the "Tide Pod" challenge was permanently removed.

Sinclair vs Viewers: "Fake News" Promos

After reviewing many broadcasts, Sinclair Broadcast Group's viewers decided to criticize them about a story that they lied about; "Trump wanting to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller, III" (Peter Stevenson/ Washington Post). Trump has allegedly responded to their stories via Twitter, stating that News Channels should stop putting out fake news. He proceeded to add on other news channels, saying that they are also known for putting out fake news for more attention. While reading the article, I was in shock. Who would put out false information? What was going through their minds? The situation caused conspicuous events to occur, including "Democrats withdrawing campaign ads from all of the company's news stations, in response to the fake news".



https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sinclair-faces-fallout-from-viewers-and-democratic-candidates-over-fake-news-promos/2018/04/05/dccb8d1a-377f-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?utm_term=.e41e00068af0

“Fake news, real impact”, by Hugo Lindborg shows the research on fake news and its impact on the relations between people. As the majority of the population gets the information through the Internet and social media, the high risk to be misinformed exists. However, print media are also criticized as well because of the great amount of fake news. Considering the consequences of fake news, the article marks the most important problem referring to human relations and attitudes towards each other; “widening divisions between population groups and its effect on society.”However, the best way to fight against disinformation lies in “the combination of technology with human intellect” that means focusing on reliable sources and data.