America’s fake news epidemic

Justin Bieber moving to Cincinnati, Donald Trump calling Republicans idiots, and Hillary Clinton murdering former staffers. Fake news is taking the world by storm, and people are becoming more and more worried about the accuracy of their news.

Fake news headlines and stories are lies that are created to mislead the public. Headlines about Pope Francis endorsing Trump, Clinton running a prostitution ring, and much more have led to many Americans becoming victims of believing in inaccurate information.

The consequence is serious. You read it, you believe it, and you share it. One popular purpose for fake news is political propaganda. Many are blaming Facebook for swaying the results of the election.

Writers of fake news make money based on the views on their articles; once someone uploads a news link to Facebook, it gets shared and shared, gaining more viewers. Nonetheless, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that it is highly unlikely that Facebook changed the election results.

Facebook and Google have been taking steps to remove fake news from their sites by taking away misleading ads.

“We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible,” Zuckerberg said.

As a major media outlet, Facebook should be responsible for all of the information that is posted, just like other companies take ownership of their products.

Not doing anything to at least make sure these stories are true is incredibly irresponsible and ignorant.

Not caring about fake news is one thing, but being irresponsible for one of the most popular social media websites in the world is another.

People learn how to take responsibility as they grow up. Taking on the mindset of being irresponsible for one thing will most likely lead to being irresponsible for other things, just like how fake news can dramatically escalate.

I myself have been a victim of reading and believing fake news. Deception is an awful way to persuade people to believe what you want them to.

The job of the media is to provide information to the people. The reason we have the First Amendment, which protects freedom of the press, is to prevent the suppression of information.

However, this information ought to be accurate. If you flood people with both fake news and real news you run the risk of a misinformed population, hostile to new information.

Prevent yourself from falling into the fake news trap by determining whether the article you are reading is from a legitimate website, checking the “contact us” page, looking at the sources, and looking at the ads.

“Fake news is so easy to believe and it is really important to make sure you know that what you are reading is accurate,” said Adam Levine, 10.

While the saying ‘fake it till you make it’ could at times be helpful, it is highly recommended that you check all of your news sources.