The News on Fake News: Whose fault is it?

Fake News. Whose fault is it? You or the Corporate Overlords?

Watch out! Don’t drink that water because it is making all of the frogs gay according to Alex Jones. It is human nature to be optimistic and trusting, but sometimes the information we are given is false. In a perfect world, truth is spread but the current news media companies are far from perfect. To increase ad exposure, they make the most outrageous and exaggerated headlines. The problem is that such companies have gone unchecked. News media companies should be held accountable for what they endorse on their platforms, and what they write. Technology and news media companies should be held almost fully responsible for monitoring and preventing the spread of fake news and the consumers should not be responsible for the monitoring, but for shunning unreliable media sources. 

Zombies Coming to Life, Report says

Technology and news media companies are at fault for playing the hearts and psychologies of their consumers. Their job is to report on current events and make analyses of past events or trends. For example, take a look at the introduction. That may look absurd to you, but in reality, many famous people were duped. This statement, made by Alex Jones, and many such “news articles” are present on the website inforwars.com. Alex Jones is known for being a far-right conspiracy theorist and a fearmonger aiming at creating mass hysteria. Nevertheless, this website, along with him, uses evidence coming from unknown sources that are cherry-picked like a supposed video of gay frogs after drinking water in his article, “Proof: gay frogs are real”. The most interesting part? It has a higher outreach than many mainstream news sites like The Economist and Newsweek. That is extremely alarming, not that people believe it or visit it daily, but that this company is allowed to continue. The reason companies do this is for money. Without ads, there is no money in fake news according to the Paresh Dave at the LA Times. The dishonest behavior of fake news and fear mongering is being enabled and even encouraged. On Infowars, once one notices the endless ads on his supplements one begins to realize that all of the gay frogs is meant to get attention for products. When companies release fake news, they are creating a bad name for themselves and instead of negatively affecting them, people creating activity around them encourages this behavior. In the end, the people lose out on honesty and integrity from news media and the companies make tons of money while repeatedly being spread and repeatedly going viral.

News Article about President

While media companies should be responsible for both monitoring and preventing the spread of fake news, the consumers have a smaller responsibility in preventing the spread of fake news. In “Six Easy Ways to Tell if that Viral Story is a Hoax” by Pete Brown, it gives ways for people to check the validity of photos such as reverse image searching. Since people are given the tools to check if something is real, then proper action should be taken. Rather than commenting either in support or in anger towards an article or post that is fake news, one can simply ignore it and not give it the attention the authors want. Although people are given the tools to prevent fake news from spreading, they are not entirely at fault as it is human nature to be good and trusting. The spread of fake news is involuntary and if people are not blamed for sneezing, then why should people be blamed for the spread of fake news. Because of human nature, the consumers are not majorly responsible for the spread of fake news.

Article Headline from The Verge

On the surface, it might look like people are gullible, but in reality, the fault is on the media companies for taking advantage of the optimism and good will of the consumers. This is not to say that consumers should remain uninformed. Consumers should learn to know when companies take advantage of them. It is ultimately media companies who need to stop deceiving us since the issues in today’s world truly stem from their misinformation. We should take a stand against these influential companies and prevent the spread of fake news. As Alex Jones once said, “Keep it real.”

Works Cited:

Brown, Pete. “Six Easy Ways to Tell If That Viral Story Is a Hoax.” The Conversation, 16 Oct. 2019, theconversation.com/six-easy-ways-to-tell-if-that-viral-story-is-a-hoax-47673

Dave, Paresh. “Without These Ads, There Wouldn't Be Money in Fake News.” Without These Ads, There Wouldn’t Be Money in Fake News, Los Angeles Times, 2016, www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-fake-news-ad-economy-20161208-story.html%3f_amp=true.

Jones, Alex. “Proof: Gay Frogs Are Real.” Alex Jones' InfoWars, 9 Oct. 2018, www.infowars.com/proof-gay-frogs-are-real/.

“Welcome to the Alex Jones Infowars Store - Infowars Life And More!” Welcome to the Alex Jones Infowars Store - Infowars Life And More!, www.infowarsstore.com/.