Acquiring News From Social Media: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. Social Media as a Source for News
A survey conducted in 2016 by the Pew Research Center on members of the Center's American trends panel, revealed that around 62% of adults in the United States acquire their news from social media. This is a great example of the educational power of social media. Nonetheless, many of the news stories that are not directly sought out by social media users are fake stories. This usually happens because they happen upon them as they use social media recreationally and do not filter their pages. The problem has become so significant that social media websites are responding. For example, Facebook has recently adopted a tactic known as PolitiFact which involves flagging reports that are fake. It is important to note that it is not censoring these reports but simply informing the public of their validity. Hence, I wanted to share this video "How False News can Spread" by Noah Tavlin that explains the origin of fake news and helps users identify these reports. |