By Aminah Khan and Elise Tran, Staff Writers
Fake news became a popularized term during the 2016 elections. News spread through websites such as Facebook were discovered to contain false information. Propaganda, through news, was spread to increase the number of voters to win the election.
Because of the spike in fake news, people are quicker to cry “fake news” when the article goes against a persons’ belief. Others are also too reliant on information they find on the internet and believe whatever they see without fact checking.
Fake news isn’t recent, just popularized. Yellow journalism was the use of exaggerated headlines or stories in order to pike interest in readers in order to increase sales. Government involvement, especially in countries that don’t have freedom of speech, can skew news fed to the general population.
Through social media, fake news can also be spread extremely quickly. Sometimes the damage is already done with false information making it too late to inform people of the truth.
With the flurry of false information become increasingly rampant, how can you determine the truth?
The best way to watch out for news: do your own research. Read multiple articles about the situation to gain multiple perspectives. If the article stems from a research paper or specific data, find the source and make the conclusions yourself.
Be cautious of the author’s credentials to make sure the source of news is reliable. To determine if a website is authentic,check the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). If the URL ends in “.com.co” or “.com.is”, it is typically trying to pass off as a legitimate news outlet.
