Informed or Misinformed?
Social media is an extremely powerful tool to reach a huge audience in a matter of seconds and influence them with an infinite pool of ideas. Spreading news has become very easy on these platforms and also, anybody’s job. As a result, fake and unreliable news and information spreads as fast and easily as credible content, creating a mixture of information and misinformation that often misleads the audience.
The problem becomes worse when there are crisis situations and people are spreading fake and misleading information without sourcing. One such example is the COVID-19 pandemic, where there is a lot of flow of inaccurate numbers, guidelines and case studies floating around social media.
Misinformation and illegitimate news exposure also has its effects on mental health.
There are so many examples of fake news stories that have been around and become viral because of their social media coverage. People believe everything they see on platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter without checking the credibility of the people sharing the content.
The biggest reason for such misinformation to spread is an overload of information. When there is too much data, info, content and talk about a certain topic, there is bound to be falsification of facts, manipulation of facts and presentation of them in ways that can easily be grabbed by the audience and influence them.
In conclusion, I believe that the spread of fake news and falsification of facts is born out of us people. There is not always a bunch of companies or authorities that are spreading such content. We are surrounded by so much information about so many things that we cannot resist but add our opinion to it and make our own versions of the facts, which then we can circulate easily using the powerful tool of social media. The solution to this also comes through us. We need to watch our sources and pick credible ones to keep a check on where we are obtaining our content and information. Spreading awareness on subjects is important, but at the same time maintaining an understanding of what is fact and what is enhanced fact is necessary.