Fake News

What is Fake News?
As new versions of the World Wide Web have been implemented such as web 2.0 and web 3.0, users have been able to share and post any information they want onto the Internet. While this is a good way to expand the information that is online for individuals to access, this too could be a bad thing for society. Fake News is a way that authors can bend the truth for political gain by taking what could be a real news story and adding false and unsupported information to it. This is very regularly seen on Social Media platforms such as Facebook.

While it doesn't seem like a made-up news story would be harmful to society, individuals often times take what the read to be the truth. This is to say that if an individual believes a fake news story and they take action, other individuals could be put in harms way. Not only could individuals potentially hurt others physically, but when certain places or people are mentioned in a fake news story, this could also lead to harmful online social behaviors as well, such as cyber bullying of those involved in the story.

Negative Outcomes of Fake News
One example of this is the story of Edgar Maddison. This man read a Fake News story during the most recent election that discussed a conspiracy theory and Hilary Clinton. While a small pizza shop was named in the fake news story, Maddison took an assault rifle to the restaurant where he caused patrons to flee and shot a single bullet.

source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-fires-assault-rifle-pizzeria-named-fake-news/story?id=43977613

Future of Fake News
as fake news stories become more prominent on social media platforms and on search engines such as Google, there is now a rise of Online giants that are beginning to rise up in an attempt to limit the amount of false information that society reads.

Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web spends a large portion of his current career focusing on limiting fake news. In 2017 he called on corporations such as Facebook and Google to look into ways to stop this information from being spread. Berners-Lee discusses that many people in the modern world gain a lot of their news information from these platforms. It is up to these companies to find ways monitor what information is being seen by users.

What can be done?
Just recently, Facebook and Google have discussed ways they will attempt to combat the spread of fake news. The idea they have is the implementation of a program called, "Fact Check." This is a tag that will be included within Googles search engine to supply an accuracy report next to news articles on the web. If the article has been fact checked, users will know they can trust the information within the source.