Melanie N. Aquino
Social media has become a stage actor of today in spreading fake news than fact news. An argument of using fake news as a term which lead false and misleading information where actors tend to disguise, mislead information and disseminate news. It has become the weapon for emotional turmoil and become a channel of chaos in giving information (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2018). In a workshop report of Information Society Project at Yale Law School and the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression on March 17, 2017, participants identified that the significant danger related to fake news is the devaluing and delegitimizing voices of expertise of the institution and hampers society to engage in rational and critical thinking of real facts. Since it already emerged in the social platforms, it has become incontrollable and become a culturized sense of perspective in the society.
Despite the odds of varying information, they can get from internet platforms which are the swiftest and the easiest way to converge to information, there is still a need to form a new generation of content in combating its falsehood and putting the real standard of righteousness to be placed in the society. In a study of Mendoza et. al (2011) to investigate the use of automated methods of assessing credibility of news, it was revealed that people tend to believe and make it a credible information of the shared post has acquired or accumulated thousands or millions of likes, thus making it credible. According to Kavanagh et.al. (2020) in a book published, people-focused tools can affect the persons’ change in consuming information. This change can come through education, credibility assessment, whitelisting, detection of reliable browser and platform setting and increase of awareness. Being able to categorize the information to feed their browser going to the consumption of their mind, it is but very salient that people should be aware of disinformation and extend researches of new applications that can detect the veracity of information. Media knowledge or literacy can better lead to their choice of feeds. In this technical generation, being techy should not only limit to the usage of the computer or advance paraphernalia, but more on how they are going to face the responsibility of choosing the information and make critical thinking their first choice. Critically thinking is finding the evidence to the claims or viewpoints of the author from any media platform they have taken the information. Even if it seems to them, a piece of data is credible, still scrutiny with critical thinking is the key against misleading information.
Undeniably, marketing, huge corporations and other agencies related to advertising implicates the content of the media and thus become a political business too. As Harari (2020) asserted, that “great power inevitably distorts the truth” because “the essence of power is to change reality rather than seeing it as it is. The irrational authority become the deceptive stuff and becomes the culture of lies. Now, how can this dilemma put light to the society today? Is it honing a good generation of wisdom or a knowledge controlled by ego and predicaments? The quests always rely in its own answers. If this disinformation has become a culture through internet platform, this can also become the network of resolution. People should educate themselves of the so-called privacy and veracious website to trust. On the other hand, in the discourse of harm and falseness, Derakshan (2017) emphasized the difference of information types. These are dis-information, a false and deliberate creation of harm to a person by a person, social group, organization and country. Mis-information, a false but not created intention to harm. This is a mistake of not scrutinizing the data gathered. And lastly, malinformation which is based on reality to defame a person. Whatever, type of information it is as long as it damages a person’s reputation, it is still not moral and should not be replicated. In education, how can educators form a new generation of content? During a class discussion and terms are defined and sources are studied, they still can verify the content of shared information. They shouldn’t only limit to one source, but various sources. They should always teach the importance of evidences of every claim. Even in asking questions, as educators they have to challenge their learners to verify, or have they evaluated their piece of share in a certain topic before it is being transpired to many audiences. As educators, they have to have a concerted effort to guide their learners with the advent of fake news. How this culture can affect their generation and the generations to come? For example, they can let them reflect what is happening in their society, the detrimental effect of fake news has brought to people who are innocent and guide them to lay value judgment of the information they have sourced in within pages or even information they only heard. The wisdom or relevance and worthiness of ideas can also be taught to learners. Giving them the frame of how to get the right information can further guide them to create a new generation of content in the printed and viewed material they have encountered and if it is their time to engage, they can fully adapt the disposition of giving an honest share to people and society.
Fact-News-over-Fake-News.pdf