Fake news.

Detect fake news.

 

The boom of fake news continues to increase until now, thanks to the easy creation of these within the Internet and rapid distribution on social networks. As a communication professional and journalist, I am worried that fake news will reach a large number of people and that they believe that they are true since on many occasions they generate fear, hate, etc.

There are different categories of disinformation as Nasr ul Hadi points out:

1. Disinformation generated by the user: such as rumors or citizen journalism that has been wrong.
2. Disinformation supported by a publication: the media is the one that is mistaken either by the poverty of the sources or by not corroborating or verifying the information.
3. Organized disinformation: are all those publications or news sites created only for the production of fake news and advertising campaigns to deceive the public.

But what to do to stop the fake news?

The production and distribution of fake news are successful because fewer people and less sophisticated technology are needed to spread the contents, the topics of the "fake news" attract more to the public and this helps to be read and shared.

Within social networks like Facebook and Twitter and one of the multinational search organizations like Google, they have already been working on some points for the detection and even elimination of fake news. But from my point of view, we as users of these social networks can also help by stopping sharing and giving a like to all those notes.

For its part, the regulation of the circulation of  "fake news" is found at the platform level where social networks implement strategies to identify them, such as those mentioned above. 

Of course, also journalists and media should always verify the facts because there have already been cases in which they give true false news.

Some points to detect a false news are:

• Always analyze the source, investigate the website. 
• READ the full story, not just get carried away by the shocking headline.
• Verify who is the author of the writing.
• Always investigate in other sources, if the news is real, in some other trusted medium, it will appear.
• Corroborate that it has a date.
• Also always verify the images used, because they tend to use images of other events, for this, a simple way is to check them with Google images to see if it really is of that fact or not.
• Always doubt the impactful headlines.  
  
  
  
  
  

These are just some steps that can help you identify a false news, it is very important to be attentive and not get carried away by everything that is shared on the networks, be careful and stop being part of that circle of fake news.