Fake news is just as it sounds, “news” that is “created
to deliberately misinform or deceive readers.”
According to my readings, many of these types of news are in social media
feeds, places where many go to get the latest news. Fake news are created to cause confusion,
embellish or to misinform on a particular subject with the intent of influencing
the public’s views. These websites look
credible and would not give the impression that they are untrustworthy. In fact, many look very professional and use
similar names of already established and legitimate news sources. So how does one spot these fake news? Fake news can be classified into 6
categories. The first, “clickbait”, are
news “stories that are deliberately fabricated to gain more website visitors
and increase advertising revenue for the websites.” You can spot these through their use of
attention grabbing headlines and click-through links. The second is “propaganda”,
with the ultimate goal of misleading the public and promoting a biased point of
view. Satire and Parody news are mainly
found on social media and focus on entertainment and parody. Here one would find outlandish stories about
celebrities and their latest supposed antics. Sloppy journalism news are simply stories that
have unreliable, verified information. Misleading
news are stories that have misleading
headings that may not be entirely false but are distorted in some way and make
use of misleading headlines to confuse the reader. Lastly, biased and slated news are news that
sway in one particular opinion or position.
Everyone wants to be affirmed that their position and opinion is correct
and such news outlets aim to use this against their readers. The goal of fake
news is not to inform the public in a non-biased way. Rather, it is to be a “profitable business
[whose goal is] generating large sums of advertising revenue for publishers who
create and publish these stories (…) The more clicks a story gets, the more
money” that is being made.
[1 images, 2 links, 2 quotation, 331
words]
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