BuzzFeed Canada founding editor says rumours, unverified information, and fake articles are taking over social media
Julianna Perkins, RSJ
The less true an article is, the more popular it tends to get, said Craig Silverman, founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada in a lecture at Ryerson University Tuesday.
Silverman, who now acts as the company’s media editor and who has launched several fact-checking websites in the past, said that popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are “ecosystems of misinformation.”
Fake news, a term that has grown in popularity since the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, can range from propaganda to the creation of full “news” websites, but regardless of the format Silverman said that its defining factor is that it is “indisputably fake and knowingly created to be fake.”
Fake news can cause real life problems
Though some say fake news creators are nothing more than Internet trolls, the trouble comes when real news organizations take part in the problem. The impacts of news outlets acting on rumours and unverified information can be very real.
As information was coming in late Sunday night of a shooting at a Montreal mosque, several news organizations such as FOX News tweeted unverified information and incorrectly identified the suspect as someone of Moroccan origin, which caused a wave of fake news stories propagating these rumours. John Clarke, a 51-year-old audio video technician who described himself as leaning politically “towards the right,” said that even though organizations have retracted their statements “some are still questioning it in right-wing blogs.”
John Clarke, a 51-year-old audio video technician, says fake news has been around since before the Internet. The difference now? It’s easier to fact-check.
The bulk of fake news however is shared and spread by everyday people. “There’s one website called the Burrard Street Journal and it’s a satire site, but I’ve seen a lot of people post things from it,” said Clarke. “Folks are putting it up like news.”
Nicholas De Souza, a 17-year-old who attends De La Salle College, remembers reading a particularly outrageous story that claimed a famous rapper had died. “It was some sponsored Facebook ad,” he said, “and I got totally deceived by it.”
Who is responsible for tackling fake news?
Now that fake news is so prevalent, some people want platforms like Google and Facebook to take a stand and work on removing the content from their feeds. Many, like second year hospitality and tourism management student William Butts, find the abundance of fake news frustrating. “I ask myself ‘Why is this even here?’” he said.
Facebook and Google “do have a responsibility, and they’re trying to figure out what that is,” said Silverman, but emphasized that we are all still responsible for what we consume and propagate.
“Facts alone are unfortunately not enough to convince people.”
Despite its current popularity, fake news has been around much longer than the Internet. “I remember people passing around flyers saying that Kentucky Fried Chicken doesn’t make chicken,” Clarke said, but “genetically modified things with no heads [that taste] like chicken.”
Though fake news may be unavoidable, we can still take responsibility for the things we choose to read and share by doing some simple investigation into where our information is coming from, said Silverman. “Facts alone are unfortunately not enough to convince people,” he said.
For an audio version of the story, click below:
