Running Head: FAKE NEWS

Fake News:

Morgan Simpson

Sterling High School

FAKE NEWS

Abstract

This paper explores the definition of what “fake news” is and how it has affected multiple

generations of people. We will be hitting information from a wide range of sources, some come

from Buzzfeed who is always down for getting to the nitty gritty, and then we have sources from

scholarly writers who have studies the flaws in children today and how they can’t detect fake

news. First we hit everyone's favorite social media app Facebook and how it has played a role in

the 2016 election. It also goes over how the elderly people are being hit by more scams claiming

to be different companies. Finally you will learn about how to detect fake news.

Keywords: Facebook, “2016 election,” social media

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!BREAKING NEWS! Hillary Clinton got busted for running a child-sex trafficking ring in a

mom and pops pizza joint, the incident took place Friday in Washington. If you had been

scrolling through Facebook at any point in the 2016 presidential election it wouldn’t be

uncommon to see stories as far-fetched as this one. These stories are being mass produced to

sway elections all across the world, stories usually come from teenagers in the smaller

European towns just trying to make ends meet to help their parents. The stories they produce

have consequences, after reading the story on his Facebook page a father of two came in with

guns blazing. No, he literally came in with a gun, fully prepared to shoot whoever was in that

little pizza joint. When he came inside he noticed that nothing was out of the ordinary and that

there weren’t any kids in the basement. By examining resources used to find information, age

groups using those resources, and the information that is mostly political, it is clear that

"millennials and or generation Z" have problems detecting fake news but also, Americans as a

whole have a problem on deciding what is fact or fiction.

Before the paper goes any further, there is some information that needs to be given to

understand the whole concept. The question that is being asked today is whether or not “fake

news” exists and if it does what can we do to prevent being scammed. Cambridge Dictionary

defines “fake news” as “false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using

other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke.” Fake news isn’t a newly

invented term, in America, Benjamin Franklin used false information to spread that the British

were paying Native American's to scalp people who were being rebellious. In the 1800's stories

were running that Thomas Jefferson was actually dead. According to Barbara Friedman

"Political parties considered newspapers as extensions of what they did. They were tools. The

point was to discredit and even savage the opponent with falsehoods." The fact is that fake

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news has been around for a long time but with technological advancements comes an easier

way to promote fake news.

Among those terms the "newspaper" of the twenty-first century is Facebook. Facebook

was first invented in 2004 in a small dorm room located in Harvard. The main problem with

Facebook in today's world hit hard in 2016 with the election for the next president of the United

States of America. The sad truth is that “according to Pew Research, 66% of US Facebook users

say they use it as a news source”(Jolley , R., Genec, K., Steinfeld, J., Tucker, D., Zere, A. T.,

Joseph, N., & Joseph, R.) According to Buzzfeed, Facebook allowed three thousand Russian-

linked advertisements whose main goal was to sway the election. The United States government

has proved that Russia was in charge of hacking the Democratic National Committee which was

a huge hit against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. Later it came out that the Russian

hackers had ties to the Russian government and that they were trying to promote President

Trump. (Jeremy Diamond) Among those terms, it was also flipped and wasn't just the

Republicans spreading fake news but, 38% of posts shared came from three large political pages

on Facebook included "misleading or false information." (Buzzfeed) Sadly American wasn’t the

only election that ads on Facebook controlled in Germany they noticed that there were ads

during the elections that were not truthful. Germany plans on either fining Facebook or creating a

task that would help control fake news. (Rachel Stern)

What is Facebook doing to prevent fake news? Well, according to Jonathan Vanian,

Facebook said that it would ask users if they have read the "article" and if they believed that it

was true or false. Mark Zuckerberg, who is the CEO of Facebook also stated that "instead of

political news, gun control, and abortion topics that we would be seeing more news that is family

friendly." He also stated, “Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever

before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them.”

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Facebook has realized that they were a huge problem in the 2016 election but, they also realized

that fake news that comes from their website has destroyed people's lives.

What can a person do if the fake news has destroyed their lives? According to Legal

Zoom, the first amendment which protects the freedom of speech. So if the Government makes a

law that forces newspaper outlets and fake news to censor their work it would be classified as

unconstitutional. So the only thing that a victim of fake news can sue on is "defamation."

Defamation is a tort that alleges that a communication damaged your reputation.(Klein, David O.

and Wueller, Joshua R., Fake News) An example could be that Stormy Daniels filed for a

defamation against President Trump stating that one of his tweets ruined her reputation. The

CDA protects publishers from the defamation claim but, recently they have stated that they

aren’t going to protect publishers of fake news. (Klein, David O. and Wueller, Joshua R., Fake

News) Longtime CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite famously said, “Our job is only to

hold up the mirror—to tell and show the public what has happened. Then it is the job of the

people to decide whether they have faith in their leaders or governments.”(Groeling, T.) What

this means is that some reporters believe that it is on you to believe if what they report is true or

not.

Before smartphones were a huge deal the only thing that was fake news was the

magazines that were in the checkout line at the grocery store. Now that ten-year-olds have

smartphones fake news target age has lowered tremendously. The age that is mostly hit is

teenagers. According to Eoin O'Carroll, the reason that teenagers are more likely to fall for fake

news is that they are always checking their phones and their brains can't tell what is real and

what is fake. Not only are they promoting fake news on social media, political figures would pay

people to go to college and spread false news. An example at Bates College, in Maine, people

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were telling students that if they wanted to vote, they would need to pay for a new license and

that they would need to re-register any vehicle they had in the state.

Teenagers aren't the only people that get hit hard, elderly people are getting hit because of

their brains being messed up. When the hurricanes hit in 2017 organization that looked and

sounded like the American Red Cross would call or email elders asking for money. Sadly that

has happened after almost every natural disasters. An example of elders being told fake news

happened during the 2016 election. Elders were being told that they could vote online instead so

they wouldn't have to go outside. Sadly their votes didn't count because you have to be at a

voting place.

Elders are also being hit with websites that they have to pay to get into. “Thousands of

academic journals do not aspire to quality. They exist primarily to extract fees from authors.

These 'predatory' journals exhibit questionable marketing schemes, follow lax or nonexistent

peer-review procedures and fail to provide scientific rigor or transparency” (Sorokowski, P.,

Kulczycki, E., Sorokowska, A., & Pisanski, K.) What this is saying is that websites that look real

are hiring people who sound smart to portray fake information. If the information sounds smart

most of the population will believe that it is true.

How to detect fake news? This has been a question that teacher have been asking their

kids for a couple years now. The only problem is that there are multiple types of fake news and

that at a young age students weren't taught how to fact check. (WAYLAND-SMITH, E.,

BROWN, S., & NAJMABADI, S.)

Clickbait has been one of the huge contenders on all forms of social media and on

Google. According to, Sarah McGuire these are some of the common clickbait titles A-list“You”

or “I”, or a personal story, an animal, trending/breaking news topics, pop culture or food

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reference, a new or unknown concept, an element of shock and excitement. She also went on and

stated that clickbait titles are really outgoing and are usually short, and choppy titles. Another tip

to do is fact check any information that you have read online that looks a little fishy. Another tip

among those lines is use common sense.

All in all, fake news fake news isn’t a new topic and it’s not

just something teenagers struggle with. With the turn of the

electronic era comes a greater risk of fake news, it’s at the fault of

parents and teachers to teach children at a young age how to detect

fake news and use common sense.

References

Eoin O'Carroll Staff, w. (2017, June 27). How information overload helps spread fake
news. Christian Science Monitor. p. N.PAG.

Fake News: What Laws Are Designed to Protect. (2017, May 03).

Groeling, T. (2013). Media Bias by the Numbers: Challenges and Opportunities in the
Empirical Study of Partisan News. Annual Review of Political Science

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Jolley , R., Genec, K., Steinfeld, J., Tucker, D., Zere, A. T., Joseph, N., & Joseph, R.
(2017, April 12). Reel-time news. Reel-time news . Retrieved December 18, 2017, from

J. V. (2018, January 20). Facebook, Twitter Take New Steps to Combat Fake News and

Manipulation.

Klein, David O. and Wueller, Joshua R., Fake News: A Legal Perspective (March 8,
2017). Journal of Internet Law (Apr. 2017).

McGuire, S. (2017, February 22). 7 Shocking Elements of Click-bait Titles. Retrieved

from Diamond, J. (2016, December 16). Russian hacking and 2016 election, explained.

Rachel Stern, C. (2017, January 9). Germany's plan to fight fake news. Christian Science
Monitor. p. N.PAG.

Seidenberg, S. (2017, July). Fake news has long held a role in American history.

Sorokowski, P., Kulczycki, E., Sorokowska, A., & Pisanski, K. (2017). Predatory
journals recruit fake editor. Predatory journals recruit fake editor, 1-7. Retrieved December 18,
2017, from

Annotated Bibliography

Harry Bruinius Staff, w. (2017, February 7). Why 'fake news' is now ensnaring liberals.
Christian Science Monitor. p. N.PAG.
McGrew , S., Breakstone, J., & Wineburg, S. (2017, Oct. & nov.). The Challenge that's
bigger than fake news . American Educator , 41(3), 1-10.

WAYLAND-SMITH, E., BROWN, S., & NAJMABADI, S. (2017, March 3). Where Do
Students Learn About Fake News? In Freshman Comp. Chronicle of Higher Education. p. B8.

Weston Williams, S. (2017, April 7). Google rolls out new 'Fact Check' tool worldwide to
combat fake news. Christian Science Monitor. p. N.PAG.

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