The Falsified Side of Social Media

In today’s day and age, social media has greatly surpassed newscasts, newspapers, and the radio as the primary source of news to the general public. Although this has its positives and allows almost everyone to have access to the important information they need, it has also made it much easier for this information to be tampered with, twisted, or falsified in order to support certain agendas– even if they are untrue. MIT proved that fake news travels faster than the truth on Twitter– demonstrating that people are 6 times more likely to spread false news due to it being “novel.” Humans love to sensationalize, and, when considering all of the misinformation I have witnessed personally, it is easy to infer that the primary cause of misinformation is to push certain political agendas.

So how does misinformation seem to spread so fast? Along with the sentiment I previously mentioned regarding the increased desire to spread the “novel” no matter if it is true or not, it is also just the creation of social media itself that is the cause. With the introduction of algorithms, without even knowing it, people lock themselves inside their echo chambers and feed themselves infinite content supporting their political and personal beliefs. News sites and politically motivated individuals know this and, therefore, can get away with posting falsified, exaggerated, or misleading information which, in turn, sparks heavy emotion in these cave-dwelling users– causing them to keep sharing and spreading the false information.

Unfortunately, the general public does not want to know the actual truth, they just want what they believe to be right and, in the world of social media, users are allowed to solely become friends with those who are politically aligned with them and join groups that share their same beliefs– creating a breeding ground for misinformation. One current example of a political figure posting misleading information to support his agenda was when Donald Trump posted misleading images that combined AI with real pictures, showing Taylor Swift (a very public democrat) and fans endorsing him for the upcoming election. Whereas the vigilant social media user would look at those images and think about all those times Taylor Swift has publicly spoken out against Trump and has made very left-wing statements, the user that just wants to be right will take those images at face value and spread them even more.

Combating misinformation is difficult in a world where even the president is using AI to support his agenda, but it is not impossible. In fact, social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram have input fact check functions that will review the validity of a post and let users know if all or parts of an image or text are false. Even so, never take anything you see at face value– read articles in their entirety, check if there is an obvious sponsor for the article that could lead to biased information, and cross check information across multiple sources. Following that, make sure you are using reputable sources and not biased ones– though they are both very popular, Fox News and CNN are the worst channels to receive news from because they have very strong political affiliations. The website Allsides.com provides users with the news as it is delivered by the left, center, and right– helping people distinguish where the bias is so they can better discern the truth. The Associated Press, NPR, and PBS news are some of the top unbiased sources to receive your news.

Although it is hard to combat AI as it keeps improving, there are some things to look out for in order to discern falsified images: is the image consistent with your previous knowledge of the subject?  Are there any extra limbs or broken physics? Is the image too smooth or too blurry? In a world of increasing misinformation, make sure to stay vigilant and to never take anything at face value– do your research and always stay in search of the truth.