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Cole Crawford, Tyler Bluestein, Tyler Lester
Fighting Fake News
How did this become a problem?
- Technology made this problem, it is now easier to put fake news out now than 10 years ago.
- Since people frequently use Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia, the creators of fake news target these websites and social media platforms because they know it will spread fast.
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Who is Fighting Fake News?
- Wikipedia
- Numerous educated individuals throughout the country
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- Facebook is now introducing a new application that they have. It is a software that if you click on an article there will be a link to other third party articles on the same topic. This is facebook’s latest action to stop fake news or how they say it “False information”.
- “Some fact-checkers are growing frustrated, saying the lack of information is undermining Facebook’s efforts to combat false news reports.”(Facebook undermines its own effort to fight fake news, by Jason Schwartz).
- This should work, only if people actually use it though.
- “Some fact-checkers are growing frustrated, saying the lack of information is undermining Facebook’s efforts to combat false news reports.”(Facebook undermines its own effort to fight fake news, by Jason Schwartz).
- Facebook should be getting more credit for what they are doing about fake news.
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Wikipedia
- What is Wikipedia: A free online encyclopedia that had its start in 2006. Open to the public and created by Jimmy Wales. Wikipedia allows the research on many historical, people, places and things.
- Wikipedia has had backlash in the past for not being reliable. A common misconception is that you can just change content on pages, you can only add content.
- They have however worked more as to finding fake and untrue content on their webpages, and wanted to take it one step further.
- Jimmy wales and his team have launched a new website called Wikitribune. A site dedicated to researching and fighting fake literature in stories and fake news too.
- The public as well as experienced journalists and editors will work together on this website to fight fake news.
- Wikitribune was built up in April of 2017 and was looking for support fast, they received more than what they expected in a short amount of time. With now over 10,000 supports since May.
- Support for everyday people and those who want more truth to their stories are the source of the help, raised money goes to paying journalists. They work to fight global and local news.
- The website is a non-shareholder, supporter based site. Those who pay will be able to employ workers and detailed subject matter will be broken down as to what to focus on. Now over 12 journalists are employed to the site.
- Link to Website – https://www.wikitribune.com/
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Just like Wikipedia and Facebook, Google is doing everything they can to use their power and platform in the fight against fake news
Google has two plans to combat fake news:
- Fighting through employees
- Fighting through users
Google- The Fake News Fight Through Employees
- Google has announced plans to improve search quality and reliability.
- The company has hired and assigned over 1,000 human editors to assess the quality of search results.
- Their job is to flag information and articles that contain false information, so that those search results don’t come up anywhere near the top.
- Ultimately, Google aims to train its search algorithms to locate and address low quality content and false information.
Google- The Fake News Fight Through Users
- Millions upon millions of people use google every day, and Google plans to use this to their advantage, as those people will become soldiers in the fight against fake news.
- Google will implement a “user reporting” option for its autocomplete feature.
- Users will now be able to report content and results that they deem offensive, misleading, or false.
- Any reported content will be received by Google and handled accordingly based on the company’s judgement.
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Individuals in the Fight Against Fake News
- The best way to fight it is to educate yourself on the matter.
- If more people know how to identify fake news, less people will believe the false, misleading information and less people will spread and share it.
- There are many characteristics that make fake news stand out against real news
○ Unreliable sources, unknown authors, lack of quotes/ people to back up story, poor grammar, cheesy advertisements on the page, and the presence of outrageous information/content.
To be educated about fake news is to fight fake news, so education on this topic is essential.
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Other Companies affected by Fake News
- Not just the large companies are being affected by fake news. Many other companies are like Starbucks, Costco, Ulta and many others. People have put out false information about these companies which is hurting them. Brooke Binkowski from snopes says “ It hurts businesses financially and it also makes things toxic for them by destroying trust and creating an atmosphere in which people don’t know who they can trust. It is the same tactics that were levelled on us as a country, really”( Companies scramble to combat Fake News, Financial times).
- These companies are not like Facebook or Google or Wikipedia, they are not tech companies or software companies. These are consumer goods companies and they cannot do anything about the fake news that gets spread around them. They have no way of hiring someone to do that unlike a Facebook or Google.
- This just does not give them a bad name but it effects these companies financially and not in a good way.
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Sources
- Oremus, Will. “Facebook’s latest move to fight fake news may finally be the right one.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 5 Aug. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-fighting-fake-news-2017-8.
- Leong, Lewis. “Fighting fake news: how Google, Facebook and others are trying to stop it.” TechRadar, TechRadar The source for Tech Buying Advice, 25 May 2017, www.techradar.com/news/fighting-fake-news-how-google-facebook-and-more-are-working-to-stop-it .
- “Subscribe to read.” Financial Times, www.ft.com/content/afe1f902-82b6-11e7-94e2-c5b903247afd .
- Coughlan, Sean. “Schools should teach pupils how to spot ‘fake news’.” BBC News, BBC, 18 Mar. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/education-39272841 .
- Robins-Early, Nick. “How To Recognize A Fake News Story.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Nov. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fake-news-guide-facebook_us_5831c6aae4b058ce7aaba169 .
- Hern, Alex. “Wikipedia Founder to Fight Fake News with New Wikitribune Site.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Apr. 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales-to-fight-fake-news-with-new-wikitribune-site.
- News, VOA. “Wikipedia Founder Launches Site to Fight Fake News.” VOA, VOA, 25 Apr. 2017, https://www.voanews.com/a/mht-wikipedia-founder-launches-site-to-fight-fake-news/3825185.html