Munoz 1

Alex Munoz
Professor Guenzel
ENC 1102
3 April 2019
The Fake News Predicament: What can be done?
Introduction

With the 2016 election season long over by this point, the United States has had Donald

Trump at its head for just over 2 years now. The full effects of this administration remain to be

seen, but the effects of the election extend well past the leadership of this country. During the

election itself, it has come to light that hundreds of so-called “fake news” stories were pumped

out, across the political spectrum. (Guess, et. al.) A fake news article, commonly consists of a

made-up story engineered to sway readers into clicking links, increasing the traffic and ad

revenue of a website. Many of these stories spread to social media such as Facebook or Twitter,

by users coming across the fallacious articles and sharing them to their followers. If these stories

gained enough steam, they were even picked up by mainstream media outlets, such as ABC

News. (“Fake News” Wiki.) The ramifications of fake news continuing to spread on the internet

will likely cast a shadow on future elections in America, especially with investigations revealing

that foreign powers (such as Russia) attempted to interfere in the election process -- by running

misinformation campaigns through social media. Thus, the predicament: How can fake news be

mitigated to reduce its future impact? In order to answer this, first, I examined the reasons behind

the dissemination of fake news. After conducting initial research into the topic, and using the

information I gleaned, I was able to choose a research question to pursue: “Why is

misinformation shared online, and more specifically, over social media?” Then, several papers

later, I arrived at the stance I intend to take in this paper – The impact of fake news can be
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reduced by pursuing methods to increase digital literacy in the average social media user,

therefore allowing more consumers to identify fake news.

Methods

For my research project, I chose a research question to narrow my focus on the subject

matter, and conducted research into the fake news predicament, looking through many studies

related to fake news and misinformation. To do this, I conducted searches on the UCF Library

website, which provides access to research databases through EBSCOhost. Some of the

keywords I searched for included “fake news,” “misinformation,” “2016 election,” and “digital

literacy”. Unfortunately, many of the studies on the topic were completed relatively recently,

(due to the attention garnered around the 2016 election season) and the pool of research into fake

news is still small at the moment. After finding a suitable amount to source my argument from, I

narrowed the sources down to around 15 to cite the different parts of my argument from. After

that, I chose a single source that was the most relevant to my research question and analyzed it

thoroughly: looking for its niche in the current discourse surrounding fake news, examining the

moves the authors make in the paper, and anchoring it to my research question. The source

chosen was “Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on

Facebook”. The most relevant parts of the study were the predictors of what inclined a social

media user to share fake news, which is quite similar to my research question. In order to

understand why misinformation and fake news is shared over social media, a study that examines

individual-level characteristics such as age, gender, or education is extremely helpful for me.

Results
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Propaganda

The changing nature of online business strategies can be linked to the origin and rise of fake

news in the internet sphere (“Fake News” Wiki.). With the introduction of the internet in the

1990s, it was originally intended to increase the ease of accessibility to information, but fake

news has tainted that purpose, with hoaxes and misinformation becoming more prevalent in the

recent decade. The base reasons behind the recent increase are multilayered. First, I’ll focus on

one of the standout motivations for fake news, especially in the past few years. Ideological and

political motivation to produce fake news: in order to advance a narrative that supports the goals

of the creator, it appears that this is the main reason for the uptick in fake news produced in

recent years, especially in the run-up to the 2016 election. Computational propaganda

“flourished” during that time (Howard, Kollanyi, et. al.) through the usage of bot networks on

social media and the production of intentionally false articles through seemingly legitimate

websites. Some examples of those websites include “USAToday.com.co” and

“WashingtonPost.com.co” (Allcott, Gentzkow). Political actors looking to influence an election

could conceivably have the tools to covertly deploy “hundreds, or even thousands of accounts”

(Badawy, Ferrara) to smear or support the candidate of their choice.

It was also often seen that the message of a fake news story could be amplified by the

lens of social media, since, by its nature, salacious and attention-grabbing titles would be spread

the fastest by users who believe it is true – wanting to “break” the story to their followers first.

And there’s also the issue of the formation of “echo chambers” in social media circles, which are

metaphorical situations where a person’s views are reinforced by like-minded communication

and repetition in a closed system. (Flaxman, Seth, et. al.) If fake news articles spread into

situations such as these, then the people participating in them may not find out that they are
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acting under the assumption of false information, and therefore, it would be quite easy for

foreign propaganda to influence the views of voters in certain situations.

Ad Revenue

News Satire, which often tries to mimic mainstream news media by parodying it, is

sometimes seen as fake news. While the content of the satirical articles is false, if a satire article

spreads through social media fast enough, it’s possible for it to be picked up as a real story by the

mainstream news media. In one instance, there was a story about a man’s lawsuit against Axe on

the basis that it failed to help him get a girlfriend, and it was revealed to be from a satire website

(M.O.H.). As it stands, satirical websites can be quite profitable. For example, one of the largest

online satire websites, “The Onion”, is a multimillion-dollar company – with Univision buying a

40.5% stake in the company for around $27 million (O’Shea). Naturally, some websites started

to form to take advantage of that profit, and started pumping out actual fake news stories,

without the clever wit of their satirical counterparts.

Another huge reason for why fake news articles are produced? The ad revenue. Fake

news stories become viral by design, and the headlines are produced to be clickbait. (“Fake

News” Wiki.) Creating false articles is intended to increase the revenue of whatever news outlet

produces it, and in some instances, websites have made thousands of dollars monthly from the ad

revenue alone. (“Fake News” Wiki.) The economic motives behind fake news production are

concerning, for one main reason. If fake news articles are produced to acquire the most website

traffic possible, then they’re likely to cater to certain demographics. For example, if a website

recognized that stories created to be neutral and non-inflammatory didn’t get many clicks, but

stories that reinforced beliefs or had sensationalist headlines got many clicks, it would be more

inclined to create the latter. And those types of articles would be more likely to spread into the
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“echo chambers” mentioned earlier. At that point, the users visiting those websites may end up

only getting their news from fake news websites, significantly altering their worldview.

Poor Journalism

As I mentioned earlier, at some points fake news articles have gained enough steam in the

social media sphere to be picked up by mainstream media networks, albeit accidentally. In one

incident, a fake news article spread over the app “WhatsApp” describing a new currency

introduced in India, that also came with a tracking device on it, with the capability of discerning

location up to 120 meters underground. It was refuted by the Indian government, but the story

had already been picked up by mainstream Indian news outlets. (“Fake News” Wiki.) In another

instance, a story originated from a fake ABC News website about a person being paid $3,500 to

protest at a rally in 2016. It was picked up by the actual ABC News outlet, along with Fox News,

and it was also shared seriously by campaign officials at the time. Often, the top Google search

results would link to stories from fake news websites, increasing the seeming credibility and

reach of these false articles. Mainstream news media jumping onto stories such as these poses a

bit of a risk to journalistic integrity, and proper fact checking could avoid these scenarios.

Incidentally, when mainstream news media outlets publish fake news stories by accident, it can

undermine consumer confidence in the traditional media, which could actually lead to fake news

websites gaining some amount of credibility in the eyes of some people.

Discussion

Given the three main reasons I’ve found for why fake news is created, why do users,

specifically over social media, amplify it? It seems that since fake news is often created to

increase the amount of ad revenue for a website, the titles are salacious, sensationalist, and

sometimes inflammatory. Designed to maximize clicks, the articles may cater to certain
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demographics, such as those looking to reinforce their held beliefs, instead of undergoing the

cognitive dissonance created by new evidence that would contradict them. If a user such as this

came across a fake news article they support, it’s likely they would share it amongst their

followers on social media, who may also share it if they also support the content of the article.

(Grinberg, et. al.) This echo chamber effect serves almost to condition the participants,

reinforcing their beliefs in a closed loop, ensuring that the website producing the articles will

attain an acute and loyal following. This allows the fake news website to pull in non-insignificant

amounts of ad revenue from the assurance that articles they create are likely to be shared, and no

longer have to rely on going viral in order to get traffic onto the website. Sharing fake news over

social media seems to be a basic case of users coming across a headline and article that supports

their beliefs and sharing it to their followers in order to help reinforce those beliefs.

Conclusion

So, what can be done? If fake news continues to become more widespread, it’s likely that

the United States and other countries could become even more politically polarized than they

already are. The main issue with fake news, which is obvious, is that people don’t know it’s

false. So the solution lies in increasing the ability of internet users to discern false information

from truthful information. A lot of users who do share fake news are older Americans, who

haven’t grown up with technology like the current generation has. So their skills of “digital

literacy” are low in comparison. Therefore, I think it is on the companies of social media and

mainstream media to help in the fight. Fact-checking and flagging of fake news articles could

prevent their spread if caught early enough, and websites that commonly spread or propagate can

be blacklisted from search engine results. People won’t be able to let an article influence their

opinions on current events if they know for a fact that its information is false. As for mainstream
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media, they can be more diligent in their journalistic practices, checking the source of a new

article before jumping on the story to break it first. Internet users as well can be more diligent, by

following some relatively simple guidelines: Considering the source, if it’s known to be credible;

reading the whole story instead of just headlines; checking the author’s credibility; looking for

supporting sources; checking the date of publication; checking to see if it’s satire; and lastly,

considering one’s own personal biases to see if the story may be targeting a certain demographic.

Using these strategies, I believe fake news can be a thing of the past within the near future.
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Works Cited

Guess, Andrew, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua Tucker. "Less than you think: Prevalence and
predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook." Science advances 5.1 (2019):
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Was Polarizing Content Concentrated in Swing States? 2018. EBSCOhost,
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Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016
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Chris O'Shea. “Univision Paid $27 Million for Stake in The Onion.” – Adweek, Adweek, 24
Feb. 2016, www.adweek.com/digital/fusion-paid-27-million-for-stake-in-the-onion/.
“Man Sues Over Lack of Axe Effect.” Museum of Hoaxes,
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Grinberg, Nir, et al. "Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election." Science
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