To Resist Fake News

DONALD TRUMP IS A WOMAN!

Does that headline catch attention? Many people will have just been sucked into today’s biggest issue in the media from that simple headline. 

According to BuzzFeed News, here is a chart of the total Facebook engagements for top 20 election stories.

Statistics show the engagement refers to the total number of shares, reactions, and comments for a piece of content on Facebook. Fake news has skyrocketed the closer it got to Election Day.

In today’s society, the first thing most people do before they even brush their teeth in the morning is pick up their phone and catch up on their social media news feed.

Whether it is Facebook or Twitter, we make sure to stay up to date.

It has become a habit to check our phones at red lights or in waiting rooms.

Standing in line at a grocery store reading the cover of magazines is also another way to catch up on “news” in the media.

Now to determine whether what people reading is factual news or fake news is what is important.

One way to avoid fake news is to check the source. Is the person giving information credible? Are they a real person?

Check the author and see if there are links listed to their contact information?

Checking the date of research information is important. This gives a chance for readers to make decisions depending on the recent information.

The writing style, such as poor spelling and grammar can indicate that the site may not be credible.

Another tip would be, do not stick to one site for information. Choosing one site can create bias, such as CNN or FOX. It is good to have a wide range of sources.

If schools continue to teach students on resisting fake news and finding what is real or fake, this will help keep “fake news clickers” to a minimum. 

The best way to avoid fake news is JUST DON’T CLICK!

As tempting as it may seem if there is any suspicion to whether or not the news may be factual, leave it alone. 

The Impact of Yellow Journalism

Yellow Journalism

Yellow journalism is a type of fake news that is over exaggerated and used as a satire approach. It is mostly used to make fun of the topic or person, and to make them look bad. Usually they add cartoons to make it a satire and exaggerate or make up the conflict. Yellow Journalists try to find a way to peak the attention of the reader.

Yellow Journalism didn’t start recently, in fact it started towards the end of the nineteenth century. It started as a rivalry between two newspaper publishers who would rival against who sold the most of their newspapers. The first yellow journalists were William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who were also the publishers of the newspapers. They would stretch the truth of the story and exaggerate it to make it sound shocking and catch the eyes of the readers. The term yellow journalism is given that name because of one of Pulitzer's most famous cartoons called the Yellow Kid. Yellow journalism is based off not well researched content and is usually very opinionated and one sided.  An example of Yellow journalism is, during the court case of Apple and Samsung. An American journalist reported that Samsung had given Apple $1.2 billion all in nickels. It was supposed to be a funny story but the yellow journalist reported it as a true story.

The article’s name, “For the new Journalist, opportunity comes in clicks and bucks”, explained that two men who are Paris Wade and Ben Goldman became well-known yellow journalists. They were working at a restaurant and didn’t earn much doing it. They became unemployed so they made a website that grew to have 300,000 Facebook followers the past October. They are making so much money that they didn’t want to say how much they were making. They’re website is now read all over the world is getting a lot of attention. They get feedback from some of their followers saying how much they love their posts and say comments like, “You are the only one I trust to report the truth.” The two yellow journalists explained themselves as the people who yell that the world is ending. They are pro- Trump so they publish a good amount of posts that is against Hilary Clinton that are obviously not true.

Even though Yellow journalism is used in a satire way, it can still cause damage because it is still fake news. One might see it and think that yellow journalism is outrageous and think that they might never fall into the trap of yellow journalism. Somehow it is still very easy to fall for it. People like Paris Wade and Ben Goldman know how to catch the attention of people, even if it’s just someone who is surfing the web. 

Yellow journalism also known as fake news!

What is yellow journalism? Yellow journalism is the biggest scam in the media. It is exaggerated news to attract viewer’s attention. Viewers see a lot of this on the cover of magazines. It has now taken over social media. Many people today believe most of what they see on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Yellow journalism is a scam on social media because writers are misleading readers for money.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Two college graduates, Paris Wade and his business partner Ben Goldman were unemployed restaurant workers looking for an easy way to fast cash. That’s exactly what they got.

Wade, looking to pull an audience’s attention creates a fake story and headlines it “CAN’T TRUST OBAMA!” In six months they had gained 805,000 followers. Click after click, these two unemployed college kids are making bank.                        

                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                                        For the ‘new yellow journalists,’ 

                                                                                                                                                                                            opportunity comes in clicks and bucks

People continue to feed into these so-called reporters who make up a bunch of bull.

                                                                                                                                

Today in classrooms, teachers are trying to help students identify fake news.

An article by Sharon Noguchi, explains that social media today are the plethora of ads, random pop-up boxes, misspelled words and unbelievable claims are all examples of fake news. English teacher Trisha Mackenzie at O’Hara Park Middle School in Oakley, teach her students lessons on the difference between what’s real and what’s not in yellow journalism.

                                                         

                                                                                                                  Bay Area teachers help students spot fake news

Many people are falling into the trap of  “fake news” in the media.  Don’t be one of those fools.

Fake News a World Traveler

Image received from Google Images

Turn on any local news station and within five minutes anyone will hear stories of the spread of fake news, especially by President Trump, or his claims of fake news against him.

Is the outpouring of fake news seen in media today a phenomenon specific to America?


Max Greenwood's article for The Hill, Syrian president: Report accusing regime of torture is 'fake news', explains of how Syrian President Bashar Assad criticizes Amnesty International for falsely reporting that between 2011 and 2015, upwards of 13,000 people were killed as inmates within Syrian military prisons.   President Assad claims that there is no real evidence, and the evidence that Amnesty International has is "forged", as Greenwood explains.

This article is just an example of how other countries are dealing with fake news as well.  Just like anything, America is never alone in a problem, especially if it is one that is preying on the ignorance of other people.  As fake news becomes more and more prevalent it becomes harder to distinguish rather information is real or fake.

However, most of the fake news is not being published by major news organizations, but rather by individuals and small groups, as Craig Silverman talked about on the Fresh Air radio show by NPR with Dave Davies.  The surprising thing is just how many of these individuals and groups from European Countries, along with others, are writing fake news about American politics intended for American audiences.

Americans are as happy as can be to share that fake news through Facebook and other social media sources.  Americans read an article and agree with the sentiment being presented, click like and share. Then the next person sees that article shared by their friend, maybe they assume their friend is more in line with politics.  So, they assume the article has to be true.  This is how Facebook has become the "driver" of news, as Silverman called it.

Why would individuals in other countries write fake news about American politics? 



Image received from Google Images

At first thought, someone might think that an individual or group would do so to influence the politics in favor their own country.  While this may or may not happen, it is not the reason of the majority found.  The Guardian and Buzzfeed News both report stories about Veles, Macedonia; a city with an unusual amount of fake news reports being generated from there.  The Guardian's Dan Tynan explains how the Guardian found over 150 internet domains related to fake news stories that were registered out of Veles.  Still, why would people in Macedonia care about American politics.  Veles is a city in the center of The Republic of Macedonia with a population of about 40,000 to 50,000 and about 25% of the population is unemployed, as Silverman explains To Davies.  

The interesting part, is that the majority of these individuals are teenagers.  With the unemployment so high, the adults who do have jobs only making an average annual income of less than $5,000 per year, according to Silverman, the teenagers' pure motivation is to make money, and some of them make a lot of it.  NBC's Alexander Smith and Vladimir Banic interviewed one of these teens who made over $60,000 in 6 months during the election campaigns of 2016.  Once these teenagers realized the potential to make easy money, the fake news exiting from Velez, Macedonia skyrocketed.

So, these teenagers' in a little town 6,000 miles away take advantage of Americans' eagerness to voice their participation in the political realm to line their own pockets.  The American citizenry is encouraged by the writing of our Founding Fathers to be informed and take part in the politics our country.  Thomas Jefferson once said, "An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy."  Therefore, should they, or anyone else, be allowed to deceive the American people for their own gain?

However, if people should not be allowed to publish fake news, is that infringing on the First Amendment right?  Given the fact that the internet was nonexistent when the Constitution was written it is unclear if government restriction of content published outside the U.S. would fall under the First Amendment.  Still government intervention could be seen as preventing American citizens from reading whatever they want.  So pressure is building on social media companies to censor content to slow the spread of fake news.  Also, where is the line drawn as to what would be "fake news"?  When one thinks about it, it may not be that simple to define "news" or "fake news".

Even then, say there was a stop put to fake news.  Would it really make the citizenry more politically savvy?  It makes no difference if there are individuals producing fake news or not.  If the American citizenry can't learn to discern fake news from real news then they will continue to be ignorant.  At which point Thomas Jefferson continued to said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

The Future of Fake News

Fake news today has evolved into a phenomenon that has become a harmful tool in exploiting the media. The media directly influences us, not only because of the rise of advanced technology, but also since it’s accessible 24/7. Within seconds, a person can pull up countless stories and post all of them for people to see.

In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center at the end of last year, about 64% of Americans believed fake news stories were the cause of a great deal of confusion surrounding current events. Not surprisingly, 23% said they have shared a fake news story before, whether it was to their knowledge or not. America is just one country compared to nearly 200 other countries. There’s no telling how big the numbers are for people who share fake news from other parts of the world.

One would think with the advancement of technology, when the ability to verify a news story is easier than ever, that it wouldn’t be this way. There’s no need to do extensive research to verify a story. Sometimes just one or two pieces of evidence can easily prove a story to be false. Regardless, people such as our own politicians aren’t doing much to help with this issue. Donald Trump himself shares fake news, proving how quick one is to reflect on something they know nothing about.

Just last year, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, and Stanford University collaborated on a research project to show just how easy it is to manipulate an audience. Entitled “Face2Face,” the researchers reenacted the facial expressions and conversation of a person by using a face tracking method. The footage shows a few of the researchers making weird faces, anything from a frown to raising their eyebrows, and having a regular conversation. Any facial expression they made or conversation they had would match with whomever was on the actual footage. Manipulating footage like this can make important figures such as politicians look as if they’re making faces or saying words they’re not really saying.

The most haunting part about this research is not only how it can be done to footage that already exists, but how it can be done to live footage as well. One person commented under the video saying, “We all realize that this is a weapon, right?” Certainly, not all weapons are in the form of guns and knives. Sometimes the biggest weapon is sitting right in people's computers. It’s not a just a weapon for politics, it’s a weapon for crime investigations too.

A documentary entitled The Central Park Five told the story of five black and Latino teenagers who were falsely accused in 1989 of raping and severely beating a white female jogger in Central Park. Trump spent $85,000 to publish full-page ads in four New York City papers to bring back the death penalty. “Muggers and murderers,” he wrote, “should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.” Although he never referred to the teenagers by name, it was quite evident that he was talking about them. Fourteen years after the teens’ sentences were vacated, a single suspect named Matias Reyes admitted to the brutal attack. To this day, Trump stands by his theory that the five teenagers were the real suspects.

Let’s assume technology in 1989 was as big as it is today. Someone could’ve easily altered the evidence by using the face tracking method. Trump only went to four papers in New York City. If the evidence for the case was altered, he could’ve paid papers around the world to advertise the demand to execute those five teens for a crime they never even committed. If face tracking becomes popular in the near future, it could possibly change the way crimes are investigated. The criminal justice system already has a long history of unfair practices, and this face tracking method can put wrongly convicted suspects on the line.

With the current threat of a nuclear war, fake news is more dangerous than ever before. It’s very unlikely that people will stop publishing, posting, and discussing fake news. However, altering fake news, such as through the face tracking method, can really change the game of how fake news is put out.

Resisting Fake News

Clicking on Fake news is how bloggers or “yellow journalist” get paid. An article that had bold print titles may be tempting to read for some readers. One way to resist reading fake news is reading the top-level domains like, gov, .net, and .edu. Looking at the domain is a good way to get an idea to know what the website could be about.

Another way to know if a website is fake is by reading the title of the source, whether the article is related to politics, celebrities, or health. Knowing if the source is reliable or not would be looking below the article to see if there are advertisements that are unrelated to the website. It is important to start reading information about the website to see if the information is true because the website could lead to viruses that will cause damage to your computer.

 Photos in certain articles may appear unrealistic,also known as being Photo shopped. Where people edit pictures to their liking to make it appear different in photos,The term is also popularly used as the term ''catfish''. To determine if a picture is real or not, drag and drop the photo into Google images to see if it will identify as the true source.
 It is difficult to avoid fake news but with the right mindset and information to help guide you to choose a reliable source , your resistance should subdue overtime.

Will the media in the U.S. be infested with fake news in years to come?

It's June 19th 2050, and everyone is running around like chicken's without a head, because news is out that the U.S. government is going to ban breakfast forever.  "No more breakfast for y'all" is trending on social media, and because the Facebook and Twitter users are clicking on the article, it's beginning to appear everywhere they scroll.  If yellow journalism continues and the people are still dumb enough to believe it, the future of the U.S. is screwed.

 It sounds ridiculous doesn't it? People might believe that the U.S government would diminish what most people believe is "the most important meal of the day."

Instead of becoming more technologically advanced as we expect to be with flying cars, robots, and the people of the United States will look like this...

The citizens of the United states (baby), and yellow journalists (everyone else) if fake news continues.

 We'll look like a hot mess.

The different types of mis/disinterpretation that fake news has includes misleading content, or misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual, false content, when genuine content is shared with false contextual information, and fabricated content, where the content is 100% false, and is designed to deceive and do harm.

If yellow journalism continues and becomes more sought out, then the people won't be ale to distinguish which news is actually true or not.  Which is dangerous because the people will be brain washed by these apparent false news articles.

News networks like CNN, NBC, FOX, and ABC will lose ratings and will eventually go extinct because it won't appeal as much to the audience as these fake news articles will.

This is why staying away from fake news is so vital is because the true and credible news networks will eventually convert to yellow journalism if they don't go extinct.  Stay alert, stay aware, and refrain from following fictitious journalism.