What the future holds for fake news!

This here is the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.

This is a tweet from Mr. President Trump spreading fake news.

The President of our country is sharing and spreading fake news through social media like Twitter. 

If this doesn’t tell you what fake news has come to, then be warned.

Fake news has only gotten worse and will continue to get worse if readers are not knowledgeable.

Fake news in the future is only going to surprise us.

This is a clip of how tech advances will only create bigger issues for fake news. 

In this Majority Report clip, a presentation of the creators of Adobe and Photoshop, who are now introducing “Project Vocal”. Project vocal is somewhat like Visual Photoshop on images, but instead, allows you to edit speech in text. This program is going to give journalists a very easy way to manipulate voice recordings and continue to spread fake news in the media.

Many people today fall for what they see through text or images that may have been photoshopped, but to actually hear a video with edited speech will be something hard to determine what is real and what is not.

This is a prime example of how social media will be in the future.

The question is, will the audience have the knowledge to determine whether or not it is fake news?

Schools should make it a lesson plan to keep our youth alert to fake news to prevent false belief.

Steer clear of fake news!

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."