Week 12 - 'Fake news and a 400-year-old problem: we need to resolve the ‘post-truth’ crisis'

'Fake news and a 400-year-old problem: we need to resolve the ‘post-truth’ crisis'
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/29/fake-news-echo-chamber-ethics-infosphere-internet-digital

• The appetite for populism is not a new problem. There is now the same problem with online misinformation
• Humans have always been prejudiced and intolerant of different views
• 'The difference is that the internet allows that appetite to be fed a bottomless supply of semantic junk, transforming Bacon’s caves into echo chambers. In that way, we have always been “post-truth”'
• Facebook, for example, is currently working on methods for stronger detection and verification of fake news, and on ways to provide warning labels on false content

Fake news is emerging and this misinformation means that it is harder for certain individuals to believe the truth when it isn't actually true due to the fact that we tend to believe our own ideologies. This therefore makes it much harder to tackle fake news stories as the story may not necessarily be true yet the individual wants to believe it so will not question the views. This brings about the idea of the echo chamber and the fact that the misinformation will not be questioned as such. Censorship and regulation has a big part to play in this, however when it comes down to it, if an individual wants to believe the story, it does not matter whether it is valid or invalid as their ideologies are being echoed towards them, revealing the negative effects of fake news and misleading stories.