In the article, “Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media”, they discuss how algorithms, advertising, and exposure are to blame for fake news about politics on social media.Â
Algorithms prioritize content to each specific user based on their interests and behaviors. This leads to filtering of information that limits diverse information and ultimately leads to bias. These algorithms push out content based on the popularity and whether it goes viral or not. Most times, when things go viral, they either provoke the user or confirm their current beliefs. For this reason, news that isn’t true can be spread very quickly through these algorithms. An example of algorithms promoting fake news to me wasn’t necessarily political, but still has the same outcome. On TikTok recently, there was a huge focus on Brian Laundry who is believed to have killed his girlfriend. During this time, the videos that would blow up and go viral were usually false information about “discoveries” that users made on their own.
Advertising rewards this kind of viral content which has created the use of “clickbait”. Once again, advertisements that we see are intended to play towards our existing biases or create a sense of outrage. These two strategies provoke the most engagement and popularity. In political advertisements, they are allowed to buy user’s personal information and target potential voters with little transparency of the sponsor of the ad. They use manipulative messages to encourage voters to vote a certain way.Â
Exposure to diverse content is very limited nowadays on social media. It is common for our friend networks to have similar opinions which filters the contact that we have interaction with. On social media, we tend to only share content that agrees with our preexisting beliefs. It is also common for people to only pay attention to content that they already agree with. So even if there is content from the opposing view, it is unlikely that that user will even take the time to read it. This causes voters to not ever change their political parties because we never seek out news of the other party. An example of this that I have experienced is during the last election, my whole Twitter was catered toward my personal political party because most of the people that I follow have the same beliefs. However, when something would pop up from the other political party, I wouldn’t even attempt to look into it or read it.Â
In order to avoid the junk news that we see everyday, it is important to start with ourselves and never share any information without knowing that the source is credible. Fact checking is very important. Another solution is to be cautious about articles with titles that are intended to evoke emotion. These articles are generally written by one political party to evoke anger. Lastly, look up news organizations to see if they side with a certain political party or who sponsors their organization. They can often be biased.
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/three-reasons-junk-news-spreads-so-quickly-across-social-media/
https://libguides.geneseo.edu/ElectionsAndPolitics/SocialMediaLies