The term "fake news" has been used for many years in the social media and news world. 44% of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook, 10% from Youtube, and 9% from Twitter, according to a poll done by Pew study in 2016 mentioned in the How Mark Zuckerberg Handles Fake News Will Determine The Future of Facebook article. It was not until couple years ago that it became even a bigger problem, especially during the election times this past year. Fake news will not go away any time soon. As much as some countries or websites can do to block "fake news", it will not be completely gone. It will interfere with people's freedom of speech.
Pew Research Center and Elon University asked 1,537 scholars and technology experts one huge question which was along the lines of " will public discourse online become more or less shaped by bad actors, harassment...." The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online. In response to the question, 42% said they expect no major changes in the coming decade and 39% said they expect the future to be more shaped by negative activities". As the article continues, it starts talking about freedom of speech in the online world. It says that people misuse that with harassing others and proving false news, which a lot of people end up believing. Although websites such as Facebook are trying to detect false news on their website, it can be controversial because how far can they go to tell someone to not post something until they come between the First Amendment.
Fake news does not seem like it is going away. It seems like it might even get bigger as the years go on. People now a days have strong opinions towards controversial issues such as gun control or abortion and they are driven by how many "likes" on Facebook they get or how many retweets on twitter they get. People will say just about anything in order to get some retweets. For example, an individual may post something about crime that happened but the individual did not get the right facts about it before posting it. Because of the post, it got others to retweet it and talk about it even though it is not even true. Twitter and Facebook are two of the biggest websites at the moment and news travels fast on those websites. The future for fake news is just beginning.
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