https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/
The internet is an amazing tool and has transformed society and how we communicate in profound ways. However, with the emergence of social media algorithms are now determining what we see and hear. This is increasingly dangerous when we know there is a lot of incorrect and misleading information online.
For this post:
- First read this article: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/09/rigged/ and share one fact that stands out to you. What do you think are the implications of the fact you shared?
- Then go online and find a recent trending article/story that has been found to be misleading or outright false. Read the article and tell us what the controversy is surrounding it.
Other sources:
One fact that stands out to me is that Facebook manipulated the posts on users' home pages to see if it could make them feel more positive or negative emotions. Social media platforms know what we like and don't like to see. So it personalizes our feed and knows what we want to see. I think its wrong because it can easily hide other things on the person's timeline. I found an article about climate is misleading inaccurate. In NASA's graph, a scientist explains that there has been Arctic sea ice decline since 1979. Antarctica sea ice has had some expansion. The news article says the expansion doesn't negate climate change. It does change the climate and glacier change.
ReplyDeleteA fact described in the article I was impressed by is given by the control social media want to have toward the users' feelings. I think it might be positive that social media, as Facebook, want you to feel good, but I also believe it's absolutely wrong, in order to do so, to manipulate the users' posts in their home pages and to lie about important and serious facts that are happening. It's sad that this happens just to increase engagement. It sounds like it's more important the popularity of Facebook than the truth about what's actually affecting the world and your lives. We also must reflect on the fact that behind articles and popularity there are people, people who read themselves saying and doing things that have been completely changed by social media and journalists just to obtain likes and success.
ReplyDeleteAn example is the article a website called ConservativeState posted with the headline “Hillary Clinton In 2013: ‘I Would Like to See People Like Donald Trump Run for Office; They’re Honest and Can’t Be Bought.’” Even if Hillary Clinton never said Donald Trump should run for office, this story claiming she did exactly that has racked up hundreds of thousands of shares, reactions and comments.
One fact that stands out to me the most in this article is that Facebook always says that they aren't a "media organization". They use that excuse to have unreasonable and false information because they know that it will bring there users attention and it will just make people use their site even more. It just shows that people who are apart of social media will do anything to get our attention and get us to think something different if it makes us use there site even more.
ReplyDeleteOne trending story is all the weight loss pills being advertised as good things for us to be using and actually going to loose weight but the New York Times just reported that many of the weight loss pills are inaccurate and misleading for us.
One fact that stands out to me is "But Facebook’s focus has been on making it easier for publishers to share on its network, not vetting their content.". This shows me that they don't exactly care what's published; they just want things to be published. Another trending story is about weight loss. The pictures on the internet attached to weight loss pills are photo shopped and the pills are not approved by the FDA. Sometimes the after picture is not even the same person from the before picture.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stands out to me is -"Rather, it pretends to be a neutral platform where people can share whatever they like, within reason." If you think about it although there are guidelines to be followed but many of these guidelines aren't followed, and they're not reported or taken off as quickly as it should it be. one recent misleading article report is the sponsorships that celebrities do. Are they really endorsing these products because they personally use it or for the money. Like the Kardashians, they sponsor these gummy hair growth vitamin supplements. Well study shows they don't work as fast as they promote they're mainly made of sugar which just makes it taste good so you can take more and buy more.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stands out the most to me is, "Facebook is the largest social networking site, reaching 67 percent of U.S. adults. Two-thirds of Facebook users (66 percent) get their news on the site — a figure that amounts to 44 percent of the general population, according to data from Pew Research. That’s up from 30 percent in 2014." I think the reason for this is because people are so dependent on their phones and believe what the media has to say. However, that's not always the case. In another article I read, it stated that some things on Facebook is completely false. I feel people shouldn't always believe what the media has to say, and focus on the real world and what's in front of you.
ReplyDeleteIn this article it says that ""But Facebook’s focus has been on making it easier for publishers to share on its network." They want to make it easier but people are putting much things on social media that shouldn't be there. But Facebook is showing that they really don't care what people post. Another misleading news is weight loss pills. There are commercials advertising all over the world about weight loss pills saying they work but they don't and they are not good for a person to take.
ReplyDeleteWonderful article, Thank you for sharing
ReplyDelete