Why is there a Need to Fight Fake News?

Fake news is surfacing on most channels, whether it be viewed on

television, Facebook, or Youtube. Many people have difficulty deciphering
whether the news is true or false as well, making a huge trouble to people’s
thoughts and ideas. Hence, we must combat fake news.

First of all, those who create and share fake news jeopardize others or
worser, threat people’s lives. Encountering pseudo information can affect people
physically, mentally, or emotionally. The circulation of really hyperbolic and
misleading health and medical information is one of the biggest problems in the
fake news era. There are numbers of reported cases of buyers getting scammed
after taking products that are said to be effective and doctors’ prescribed but ended
up getting serious side effects. Another reason is that fake news leads the nation to
confusion. All the news from untrusted sites are what makes us as people think we
are seeing or hearing the truth and this could change how things happen in our
country. Now that the election season is coming, fake news are circulating all over
every sites manipulating political reasons. Even if you take away the politics here,
the level of disinformation in the Philippines is alarming. Hong Kong, among
others, has already published articles regarding our deplorable intellectual state as
Filipinos. Forget Leni Robredo or BBM. Think of history itself. What makes an
average Filipino think that history has been debunked with only Tiktok or Youtube
videos? It takes a systematic and critical study to make revisions of history. That
fact, even a high school student knows. In my observations, fake news also makes
people to be ignorant. They choose to believe in things or beliefs that are
encountered first without digging into it. Even corrections and these news are fact-
checked, those who were misinformed would not acknowledge it because the
‘fake’ is more favorable to them.

Summing it all up, fake news contributes nothing but a downfall to our
country. Rebutting fake news is possible, but the agenda inspired “fake news
factory” will keep making fake stories. False articles encourage people to value
emotions and beliefs higher than facts. This results in poor-decision making that
can influence the whole nation; and once this happens, I think it would be
impossible to predict the future generations’ fate.