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5/09/17 What is causing the increase in the spread of misinformation? DejaNae Phillips

DejaNae Phillips

Werry

RWS 200

May 10, 2017

Preview: What is my project

I decided to format my final essay into an online news article you would find on a website or a blog. The

audience is for high-school and college students. The text is written in a tone that is “laid back” and easy

to understand. I included visuals to make it more interesting. Usually, online articles/blogs do not

include their sources in their articles so I have added my work cited to this page. The ones that say

Proquest or Computer came from the SDSU online database.

Works Cited

Berghel, Hal. “Lies, Damn Lies, and Fake News”. Computer, 50.2 (2017): 80-85.

Holcomb, Jesse. “5 Facts about Fox News”. Pew Research Center. The Pew Research Center, 14 Jan.

2014. Web.

Silverman, Craig. “‘Catch Me Outside’ Girl Danielle Bregoli was Targeted with Fake News because this

is Our World Now”. BuzzFeed News. BuzzFeed, 22 Feb. 2017. Web.

Taub, Amanda. "Partisanship is the Real Story Behind the Fake News." New York Times, Late Edition

(East Coast) ed. Jan 12 2017. ProQuest. Web.

“The Real Deal: Cable Satire Vs. Cable News”. University Wire. Proquest, 30 Mar. 2016. Web.

THR Staff. “Roger Ailes”. The Hollywood Reporter. THR, 06 Apr. 2015. Web.

“Twitter: number of active users 2010-2017”. The Statistics Portal. Statistica, n.d. Web.

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What is Causing the Increase in the Spread of Misinformation?

By: DejaNae Phillips posted on May 10, 2017, at 2:23am

Full Bio: DejaNae Phillips is a first year college student at San Diego State

University. She is enrolled in a RWS 200 course where she has learned different

aspects about fake news. Ms. Phillips has reviewed many other authors and has

examined their claims on what they believe cause the spread of fake news. In her

article she will present her own claims on why she believes fake news is spreading

and present evidence and examples she finds from reliable on-line sources.

The proliferation of fake news is concerning many parents, political leaders and teachers. When

inaccurate information is spread, children, teens and even adults form misinformed opinions about

topics that could be detrimental to their lives. How? Well, just recently during the 2016 election, there

were a lot of fake stories about the presidential candidates roaming the internet and TV. When people

see these stories, they tend to believe them. That leads the viewers to vote for a certain candidate based

off of the fake news stories they come across. This is just a very small detail and I will further explain

later in the article. The worried parents, teachers and political leaders are all trying to find solutions on

how to stop fake news from spreading. But, it is important to know the causes of fake news before, in

order to find the solutions that are most effective. The causes of fake news are: Social Media,

Partisanship and cable news!

It’s right at our fingertips!

The increase in the use of technology and social media is

directly proportional to the increase in the spread of fake news.

Smart phones that have Twitter, Facebook and even Google

give readers easy access to false news stories.

I believe that having access to fake news at our fingertips and

the increase in social media users, makes it that much easier for fake news to spread. With the simple

click of a button fake stories are dispersed all over the internet. 2





For example, Huzlers.com, a website known for posting fabricated news stories, recently posted one

about the infamous “Cash me outside” girl, Danielle Bregoli. They said that she was being arrested for

prostitution. From Huzlers.com, it went to Twitter and Facebook where it got over 90,000 shares and

comments. Although some may realize right away that the story is not true, others may not. When fake

stories are shared, reputations could be ruined and feelings could get hurt. The same day “Trending

Hoax News” posted about Ms. Bregoli, she tweeted “I do support anti-bullying but I can’t bite my

tongue all day every day when thousands of people just talk sh--.” Craig Silverman, a BuzzFeed News

Media Editor who has been studying media inaccuracy for years had an interview with Pablo

Reyes, the person who runs Huzlers.com. Reyes said “Whenever we put something on Huzlers and we

throw it up on a couple [Facebook pages] it tends to just blow up”. In other words, when stories are put

on social media, if it catches people’s attention, whether true or fake, it ends up being shared. While fake

news sites may be the source, social media sites make it easier for the false stories to be disseminated.

How? Because nowadays people are always on their phones and social media. Some may argue that

phones and social media, although are fairly recent, has been around longer than the fake news phase we

are in now. But, what they fail to realize is that social media sites and apps are gaining users every year.

Below is a photo of how many active Twitter users (in millions) there were starting in the first quarter of

2010 up to the first quarter of 2017. As you

can see, the number of active users has

increased by about

The photo to the left is of “Trending Hoax News” sharing the story about 13 year-old Danielle Bregoli on February 24, 2017. The photo above is a screenshot of Bregoli’s twitter responding to the stories and hateful comments made toward her not just from this fake news stories but others.

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300 million. So, even though social media has been around for a couple of years, the number of people

on social media has increase. When there are more people on social media, more people are able to see

fake stories and share them. This is why I believe technology and social media are causes of fake news.https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/

This photo is from a website called Statista. Statista is “one of the leading statistics companies

on the internet with a team of over 250 statisticians, database experts, analysts, and editors,

Statista provides users with an innovative and intuitive tool for researching quantitative data,

statistics and related information”.

Mark Zuckerberg Disagrees!

Not everyone agrees that social media is related to the increase of fake news including creator of

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. During the 2016 election, many people were blaming Facebook for

playing a role in influencing the election. Not only did Zuckerberg say that was “a crazy idea”, but he

also mentioned that Facebook employees do their “best to make it so that people can report that, and as I

said before, we can show people the most meaningful content we can”. While that may be true, even

though Facebook gives people the ability to report fake news stories, that does not stop it from

spreading. Facebook also does not sift through every story and get rid of the false ones. While that may

sound insane and hard to do, it is necessary. Although it is his website, and he feels the need to support

his project, he also has to realize that fake news is a

problem and that he and his members should try to come

up with a way to filter fake news as much as possible

and get rid of filter bubbles.

Filtering social media will be difficult, but I do believe

it is possible. Although technology is advancing and

will continue to advance, I believe we should be using that

to our advantage.

For now, the best way to keep fake stories from spreading

is to have educated professionals researching news

stories that are popular and figuring out if they are real

or not. By doing that, they can post the reasons for a story being fake such as the resources used. These

professionals will be the people who help us internet users from differentiating real and fake news

stories that are hard to tell apart.

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https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/


Partisanship: Were you on Facebook during the last Election?

I believe that partisanship is another reason why fake news is spreading so quickly because it causes

competition and people tend to use trust as a short cut. Partisanship is having a strong sense of identity

with a group or party. Well, what does that have to do with fake news? I’ll tell you.

Former human rights lawyer and reporter for many news sites, Amanda Taub, wrote in her article

“Partisanship is the Real Story Behind the Fake News” that “the public’s view of politics is becoming

more and more zero-sum: It’s about helping their team win, and making sure the other team loses”.

In other words, people’s identification with a certain political party causes competition and dispute.

Photo From: Hal Berghel “Lies, Damn Lies and Fake News” http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7842838/#full-text-section

Picture it this way: If a republican sees a story about Donald Trump winning the popular vote, they will

share it, whether or not they know it is true. They do that because it makes their candidate look well and

ultimately makes them look well also. But, it also goes the other way. If a republican saw a story about

Hillary Clinton selling weapons to ISIS, they would share it because it makes their opponent look bad.

Many people do that in order to get their candidate (or their team) to win the election.

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http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7842838/#full-text-section


I agree with Taub because during the election, a few of

my Facebook friends were posting degrading things

about Trump because they did not want him to become

president. I believe that having a strong identity with a

candidate or against a candidate will definitely cause

people to share things, real or fake about the opposing

candidate.

The screenshots to the left and right are of my

Facebook friends sharing or posting their feelings about Trump.

Taub also mentions that “Partisan bias fuels fake news because people of all partisan stripes are

generally quite bad at figuring out what news stories to believe. Instead, they use trust as a shortcut.

Rather than evaluate a story directly, people look to see if someone credible believes it, and rely on that

person’s judgment to fill in the gaps in their knowledge”.

In other words, when people see stories about someone in power or someone they look up to voting for a

certain candidate, then they will usually side with that credible person.

For example, a fake news site, WTOE 5 News, put

out a story claiming that Pope Francis endorses

Trump for President. I agree with Taub because

when fake stories like this are put out into public,

many people may base their vote off of it. Especially

if someone was already planning to vote for Trump,

when they see the Pope “endorsing him”, that may

push them to want to support Trump even more.

Therefore, some people would use “trust as a shortcut”

here and automatically believe Trump is the better

candidate instead of looking into the story to figure out if it

is true or false.

Cable news: Information or Entertainment?6


The last reason I believe fake news is continuing to spread is because of cable TV. According to a Pew

Research in January 2016, TV was the number one place where people got their news from. About 6 out

of every 10 Americans got their news from TV. But why is that important?

Well I believe there are two reasons that interlink into one: Cable news is now (for the last four decades)

24-hours long which leads to cable networks being more entertainment based than information based.

Only so much happens in a day so there is no way a cable news is always giving viewers true

information.

The article, “The Real Deal: Cable Satire vs. Cable News” states that “Partisan bickering and

sensationalism tends to make up the majority of the news we have access to unfortunately, and even

when the public wants answers and information in the wake of tragedies such as those in Brussels and

Lahore, sensationalism and politicization take precedence”.

In simpler terms, so called “news channels” are filled with everything being “BREAKING NEWS!” and

fake stories that lure viewers in to “tune in later” to see what happens. I believe that cable TV has

become not only become an entertainment business but a competition business for the most viewers.

But, back to the entertainment- this includes stories about what celebrity is dating who, how so-in-so

MIGHT be pregnant and other fake but interesting stories that keep viewers on their toes.

This also means that that cable TV is not doing their job. Like the article said, the public does not always

want entertainment. We want news and information on what is really happening in the world!

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In fact, Former Chairman and CEO of Fox news admitted to

the Hollywood Reporters that Fox 5 News Channel is not

competing with CNN nor MSNCB but rather “competing

with TNT and USA and ESPN”. If I remember correctly,

those are all entertainment channels! Keep in mind that in

2013, Fox news was the number one viewed news channel.

That means that thousands of people were getting their

everyday news from an entertainment channel! When

thousands of people are watching cable TV filled with fake

news stories, they will tell their kids and family members and

co-workers who all might believe them.

Remind me, why is this important?

To reiterate, I strongly believe that social media/technology, partisanship and cable news are what

causes fake news to spread. I believe technology and social media cause false information to spread

because it is at our fingertips which makes it easier to share, like and comment on posts and because the

increase in the amount of people using social media. I agree with Amanda Taub that partisanship causes

fabricated stories to proliferate because it creates competition where people are sharing posts to either

support their candidate or discredit the opposing candidate. Also, people are unsure whether some fake

news stories are real or not so they fall back on trust and believe who they think are credible sources.

The last reason I believe made-up stories are being spread is because cable news channels are turning

into entertainment base rather than information base and because they have to fill their 24-hour TV

channel with something that will keep viewers watching.

It is important to know these causes in order to figure out effective solutions that will decrease the

proliferation of fake news.

It is a problem that need to be solved, but it all starts with you!

Read Next Article: Fake News: A Guide for Guides to find out how you can determine whether or not

news is fake or real!

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