1) Read this Guardian feature - Fake news: an insidious trend that's fast becoming a global problem
2) What similarities do you notice between the different countries outlined in the article and their problems with fake news?
Between the countries discussed: Germany, Brazil, India, China, Australia, Myanmar, Italy and France. The biggest similarity in their problems with the spread of fake news is the concerning effect that it has already had and will have on the countries political systems and the Government in general. Another problem that the discussed countries have with fake news is the upheaval that the spread of controversial issues is having; topics such as religious hatred and sexual assaults which the millions of people resided in the respective countries will all have different opinions on. One country that stood out to me in the article was China, who claim that fake news is not the issue in their country it is fraudulent reporters ripping people of to spread negative stories, there issue is the worries that this presents for their financial status not their political status like all the other discussed countries.
3) Is fake news an inevitable consequence of the "culture of freedom and innovation" that the internet has brought with it? Is there a way to stop it?
I think that fake news is always something that had the potential to arise at some point with the developments in new and digital media and the soaring success of social media. This is simply because we all have a better ability to share our views and values with one another and the line between what is real and what is not real can/has become blurred out very quickly. However, I think there is a way to stop it or reduce it but companies just need to figure out what that is. Sites can be innovated for better visitor experiences but also to have tighter controls over what can be posted and what can not be posted.
New York Times and the creation of fake news
1) Read this New York Times feature - Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’
2) Which fake news stories were particularly successful for Beqa Latsabidze, the 22-year-old student in Tbilisi, Georgia, who tried to make money from web articles on Trump?
- 'The Mexican Government announced they will close their borders to Americans in the event that Donald Trump is elected President of the United States'. -- This story became the third most trafficked fake story on Facebook from May to July.
- 'Mexico planning to call back its citizens from the United States if Mr Trump won. -- Generated a huge amount of traffic,though not as much as the one above, which Mr. Latsabidze described as "a really great story".
- George Lopez keeps promise to leave the US because Trump won, leaves behind a nasty message
3) How much can Facebook and Google be blamed for this global rise in fake news?
I think that Facebook and Google can only be partially blamed for the global rise in fake news. This is because the services that these companies among others provide us with are sharing platforms so there isn't and probably has never needed to be tight controls over what appears on the platform, which is why fake news wasn't caught among the real news. However, now with the rise of the fake news such sites are now cracking down against fake news and putting tighter controls in place to help them tell apart what is fake and what is real. On the other hand, I think that the likes of Facebook and Google cannot be blamed for the global rise in fake news because I think some of the fault lies with mainstream traditional sources of media like the radio, TV etc, who encourage clickbait (driving us to getting our news up to date all of the time online). They are encouraging us to go online and so when we do we do not stop to think if the news stories are suspicious or the truth because the encouragement to go online in the first place comes from sources that we trust being mainstream news companies such as Sky and the BBC.
Website References - Who is to blame for fake news spread?
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/307286-dont-blame-facebook-for-fake-news-and-trumps-rise
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