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So we need to defend ourselves against getting duped. If the last two years have been any indication, next year promises to be a doozy of a news year. In instances such as these, the stakes are too high not to get the facts straight. In the case of #pizzagate, a man decided to “self-investigate” the child abuse allegations, arming himself with several weapons, arriving at the restaurant cited in the fake story, firing a shot (luckily without injury to anyone), and terrifying bystanders. It can also provoke serious consequences. People are more likely to accept information that confirms their beliefs and dismiss information that does not.īut the result of all this misinformation isn’t simply ignorance. This creates a viral storm of sound bites without substance.Īnother contributing factor, according to Pew Research, is confirmation bias. Why? Perhaps because eye-popping headlines in our social media feeds make it easier for us to share content than evaluate or even read it. Thousands of people circulated these false stories. Speaking of the Internet, did you hear the one about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump or the Clinton campaign running a child sex trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington, DC, (#pizzagate)? Both fakes.
#Ed store fake tv#
And for those under 30, online news is twice as popular as TV news. According to Pew Research Center, people under age 50 get half of their news online. While fake news has been circulating as long as its legitimate counterpart, it’s been getting a lot of play recently, thanks to the way we consume information. An unprecedented American election, Brexit, earthquakes, and outbreaks all contributed to some of the most compelling news in recent memory.īut mixed in with all the fair, factual, and well-researched reporting was something more sinister: Fake news, stories that seemed accurate, but were actually downright false. The last few years have been newsworthy, to say the least.
