"Fake news": Can you believe the news you read on social media?

"Fake news"

There has been a lot of talk about “fake news” especially around the whole issue of the US election. False stories were spread mainly through social media and some people even believe that this could have helped influence the election result!

I newspaper (which we take daily in Library+) highlights the problem of fake news in their article below from 17th November 2016:-
Don’t believe what you read: the worrying rise in fake news

Many news stories break on twitter, for example, as an immediate way of spreading details of something that has happened in the world and this can be invaluable. However, like anything, it is essential to check who initially tweeted the news. Can you find it mentioned on a trustworthy news website like the BBC news website or one of the main broad sheet newspaper websites? Do they all back up the story? If these sites don’t mention it, perhaps that means they haven’t been able to validate the story from their sources.

Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Of course newspapers (mainly tabloids) are often criticised themselves for being biased, reporting rumours and even making news up. If you are studying media, these “stories” may be of interest in themselves for your research as a way of demonstrating how the press influence society or what society is “thinking” for example. Similarly, if you are researching social media itself, the tweets/ Facebook news items may be key examples in themselves and worth quoting too, but qualify why you are using them and look at/ use them critically.

And finally to end this week…. perhaps you’d like to have a go at spotting some fake news using I newspaper's quiz....
Quiz -can you spot the fake news stories quiz?