All of us have uttered those words either in one way or another during our lives.
But what happens when you can no longer tell when something is precisely that?
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| The Duality of the Facebook User |
If you have ever taken a Psychology class, the term "Confirmation Bias" is likely familiar to you: We tend to believe what enforces what we already know or think we know.
In the article, "'Nothing on this page is': How lies become truth in online America," Eli Saslow explains the two sides of fake news: The producer and consumer.
Christopher Blair runs the Facebook page, America's Last Line of Defense. Despite the satirical nature of his page, it has become a news source for older pro-Trump conservatives. His lies confirm what people supporters think they know: Democrats are indeed Demoncrats.
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| One of the many warnings on America's Last Line of Defense. |
Blair has numerous warnings on the page about nothing being real, as well as some explanations below photos, but none of these warnings have worked. People read and understand what they want to know, instead of critically thinking about the content of his posts.
For some Americans, Facebook has become their only news source; everything else is fake news. Shirley Chapain is one of many Americans who get their news from Facebook. She didn't like then-Senator Obama during the 2008 election for understandable reasons: his inexperience and arrogance.
After the election, Chapain learned more. President Obama wasn't just a liberal, he was a socialist! She continues further down the rabbit hole and eventually found Blair's America's Last Line of Defense.
There was a post of a photo that circled Chelsea Clinton and Michelle Obama. It claimed they flipped off President Trump after Trump extended an olive branch to them.
Chapain and many others liked, commented, and shared the post without honestly questioning whether it was them or not.
Who is to blame for the plethora of misleading or disinformation online? Some point to Facebook and its algorithms, effectively filtering people into their own bubbles with posts that will cause them to spend more time on Facebook and increase ad revenue. Others blame the decline of traditional local newspapers and declining trust in TV news, or the posters of the false information.
Our deep trust in our critical thinking skills causes us not to be able to recognize truths from falsehoods.
We may laugh now, but fake news has the chance to do great harm to us and society.
First of all, great title. There was no way i could see the title can couldn't read it. Also, I like the aurguments you make throughout this post, especially confirmation bias. It amazed me reading about Christopher Blair because people would see these posts, see the warning, yet still repost these fake articles. That alone was astonishing to me. I also like that you provided different examples in your post and explained their impact.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I think could improve your blog is delving a bit deeper into Facebook and it's algorithms. I beleive that would be a great segway topic in context to this blog post and it's content.
DeleteI appreciated your use of short paragraphs, the meme and hyperlinks! The formatting was good. I think you also did a good job of tying the blog post in with the course content--something many of us struggled with. These were some of my favorite examples from class!
ReplyDeleteOn a rewrite, I'd like to see the second half of the post broken up somewhat. The post is wordy, which isn't a bad thing, but a lot of the media content is concentrated in the first half.