Social media is something I am really intrigued with, and coincidentally it is a breeding ground for fake news.
A quote that has been swirling around about Vice President Mike Pence
Vice President Mike Pence: “Allowing rape victims to have abortions will lead to women trying to get raped”?
From the first red of the quote it seem unlikely that any educated person would say this, especially the Vice President. Of course people believed it, because it was on mass media sites. Facebook actually flagged this quote as being fake news. So we know the Facebook flagging system is effective. I found it interesting that Facebook had to be the thing that flagged this quote. This is a completely fabricated quote with no backing, and people believed it until Facebook flagged it. This puts into question if all sites should adopt this program to flag fake news. This could be the beginning of making mass media more trusting to citizens.
I am amazed by the things that people read and believe on Facebook today. Everyone is so divided that anything negative (real or fake) automatically gets blown out of proportion and used as a weapon against people. I am really glad that Facebook has taken the initiative to flag things considered 'fake news' because I think it will help in stopping people from getting so heated on social media over things that are not even real. Hopefully in the future more social media sites begin to flag these things as well.
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