Breaking News! Faking News!

Do you ever come up with something so tremendously awful you feel obligated to include it? Enough about my blog title, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this thing.

As a self proclaimed nerd I spent a lot of time in my youth online, and so fake news has been nothing new to me for a long time. I remember there was actually a youtuber I used to watch named Jacksfilms who would occasionally get his viewers to comment fake facts that he would then turn into shareable memes you could download to fool your friends and family. Essentially this was actively creating misinformation (or disinformation. Thank you Chris for my word of the day). The goal of this content of course was to be humorous by spreading false information and getting a reaction out of those who were fooled by it. As I’ve just learned in Chris’s video this is just one possible reason for spreading fake news. As seen below, the possible motivations also include money, politics/power, passion, and (mis)inform.

Source

While these other motivations exist, I feel like I tend to see fake news appear most often with the goal being humour/fun. I’ve said it multiple times in this class, but my main use for social media is to get sports news or watch highlights. Even in the sports world there are plenty of accounts that exist just to spread misinformation. When I first came across this type of content I would say I had no idea how it’s considered humorous. It just seems silly to spread fake news for no reason, but on several occasions my one friend has sent me screenshots of these kinds of posts telling me he’s stunned at the “breaking news” in the sports world, and honestly every time it happens I have a huge chuckle before letting him know he’s been duped. So while I don’t engage with that content, I kind of understand it now.

I’m sure fake news happens on other websites, but as someone who uses almost solely Twitter there has been a very negative side effect since Elon Musk took over. Before when these fake sports analysts would spread misinformation they were using an unverified account and often had a human username that was actually a pun. Pretty easy to spot, or at least I thought so. The same couldn’t be said for my friend. But now the people who run these accounts are getting wiser. Let me give you an example. There is a very popular NBA news account that has recently had a Twitter doppelgänger emerge that spread fake news. If you’re not looking closely you’ll miss the difference. The thought behind this copycat design is that people will just view the content from the post and move on with their new information. Unless someone specifically looks at the username or closely studies the profile image their brain will just fill in that it’s probably from the trusted source. It’s even more trustworthy to those who forget the blue checkmark no longer means the account is verified, it just means they pay for Twitter. Thanks Elon…

Now I’m sitting here all high and mighty. Portraying myself as if I’ve never fallen victim to fake news. That’s not the case. While I may not remember any specific examples of me getting got by fake news I know that on more than one occasion I have told my fiancé something I read online, only to go and find the information again later and realize it was a lie. Trigger warning for anyone stressed out over the results of this week’s US election, but in these moments I would often quote Mr. Trump himself and say:

You are fake news

In light of recent events, I will attempt to refrain from falling victim to fake news in order to not give anyone trauma for the next four years.

I’m realizing that for the most part this blog has been very sports focused, but thanks to Lisa’s video I’ve learned that I can start referring to this as my filter bubble. This is the world I’m living in on social media. I’m not using social media to venture out into new ideas. I’ve built myself a little nest of concepts and beliefs that I’m comfortable in (Honestly most of them are probably on the fence because I believe almost all possibilities have pros and cons), but just as I’ve said last week I don’t want to turn into a crotchety old man who refuses to change the way he thinks and as such I should be doing a couple things differently. First, I don’t believe I need to search for contrasting beliefs, but I should be open to them when I hear or read them instead of simply shutting my brain off and glazing past them. And second, this I also mentioned last week, I need to approach information with more skepticism even in cases where I agree with what I’m reading. Just because I believe something doesn’t make it true and as such it’s important to go beyond the headline. In fact, if I want to stop saying the aforementioned quote then it’s not only important, but also necessary.

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