For an online digital learner it is ethically unacceptable to spread fake news.
In todays day and age, fake news is becoming one of the most common things to see on our online platforms. Anyone can hop online and publish any information they deem worthy with extraordinarily little worry for the consequences for themselves or others. By continuing to produce fake news people are becoming confused and do not know if what they are reading is real or not. “The news industry must provide high-quality journalism in order to build public trust and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them.”(West December 2017). People believe what they read online, coursing havoc with lies and misinformation, becoming dangerous to many. It is unacceptable to spread fake news online and disregard others’ lives.
One of the many groups of people who spread fake news online are scammers with agendas. “Shady operators are publishing fake online news stories designed to look like they’re from a trusted news source, such as NBC, CNN, Fox News, ESPN, People and US Weekly.”(Weisbaum 2019). These fake news site will then convince a small percentage of the public to give over bank details, buy new and amazing medical marvels and so much more. They use their words to convince you that you need this object in your life and show fake evidence to help support their claim. This can become dangerous to many, as the wrong medical drug scam can endanger the lives of large numbers of people, disregarding the consequences.
Another problem with having fake news be so accessible and easy to find is the impact it can have on students. “Alarming evidence that a large majority of students are not well prepared to investigate sources of information for their accuracy, relevance, and quality. And despite more than a decade’s worth of policy chatter about media literacy, whatever schools have been doing doesn’t appear to have been enough to inoculate students against “fake” news.”(Sawchuck 2019). By allowing this information to be so accessible to the public can impact the lives of many students. The work they find online does not always get checked and they can be swayed to believe what they read online to be true. In this case, it means that a student can depend their work on an article published by a fake source and not even know it, jeopardizing their future by accident. If this then leads them into failing it can impact their future entirely, making their lives difficult in many ways.
Age groups who are vulnerable without our help is the young and elder groups. Information found online can not always be correct, and these two age groups can find it extremely difficult to tell the difference. A study done by a group called The Conversation on 1000 kids found “Of further concern, our survey finds a large number of young Australians do not challenge the news they consume, even as they get older. For example, 46% of young people who get news stories from social media, say they give very little or no attention to the source of news stories found online”(Notley 2020). The elder generation struggle to keep up with this new age of technology, and also do not understand the difference in news sources. This is extremely unnerving as we have no idea what the younger generation believes and takes in off the social media. To say that they do not even question where they are getting their information from is alarming and can potentially become dangerous for their lives.
A large portion of the online platform of fake news is information on social media influencers. These are people in the public eye like celebrities, youtubers, models and bloggers. They represent brands and a large portion of their life is therefore shared online. Not only can the news be spreading lies about their lives and brands, they themselves can be unwittingly advertising fake news with brand deals. “Police and trading standards officials have told BBC News that social media influencers are unwittingly helping to fuel the trade in counterfeit goods. With their millions of followers, many of them get paid to promote clothing in their posts, but the authorities fear some may be advertising fakes.
”(Crawford 17 July?). They can also spread fake news by commenting on something without really knowing all the information, and with millions of people following them it can escalate. This can become dangerous to them by being in the public eye and making mistakes, making life harder.
In conclusion, fake news online can only benefit those who are publishing it. It is a dangerous form of manipulating people who are unwittingly believing what they read online. Some fake news can be hard to tell the difference, and only by checking our sources on reliability do we know who we can trust. Monitoring what we read and believe online is the first step to protecting our lives.
References:
Crawford, A. (17 July?) Social media influencers warned against promoting fake brands.
Notley, T. D., Michael (2020). “We live in an age of ‘fake news’. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy.” from https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-an-age-of-fake-news-but-australian-children-are-not-learning-enough-about-media-literacy-141371.
Sawchuck, S. (2019) Students Are Really, Really Bad at Spotting Fake News, Misleading Websites.
Weisbaum, H. (2019) Fraud Alert: Scammers use fake news stories to sell worthless products.
West, D. M. (December 2017). “How to combat fake news and disinformation.” from https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-to-combat-fake-news-and-disinformation/.
