As I said in part one of this article, creating content is vital for commercial and social activities. So all Brands are generating content, influencers also generate content and as more people try to become influencing on their social media channels, the challenge to attract people gets more difficult.
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Why there is fake news and useless contents on the web?
It is complicated! there are different reasons behind this phenomena and not all of them are agreed by majority of people. I will point to some I do believe; but first, a word of wisdom:
“To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame”
― Alfred de Vigny, Stello
MONEY
Part of the game has the old reason. Some people make money out of sh!t. Clickholes and fake website loops which just try to put you in a trap to see their services or goods.
But not always it's that simple. Money has many faces, and one is through direct selling of goods and services. Some fake news are smartly trying to manipulate your consuming behavior, so you buy their idea without even noticing what made you do so.POWER
Your time is your asset; agreed? if so, when you are spending time on a website, it delivers them the power to influence you. when you are in a store, the first rule for shopkeeper is to make you stay more at their store. staying more means "you are giving them a like"Credibility
Suppose someone writes an article with tons of efforts, research and fact checking. Now imagine a second guy writing something out of the crap, and now imagine people are attracted to both articles, same way!
They are obtaining credit from the society; one has spend all the knowledge and time, the other is stealing people's attention with junk. It is like he/she is stealing credibility out of a basket belonging to the society.psychiatric issues!
Do not underestimate the power of mental issues! Inferiority complex, rumor hunger, the cognitive bias, polarization exacerbation and more.
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OK. now let's see
Why people believe and spread the fake?!
- confirmation craving
some people see acceptance and confirmation through the content they spread. it doesn't necessarily take credibility, just having your words said, means presence and acceptance for them. - Minority paranoia
fear of becoming part of a minority that could be punished by the majority is another reason some may accept and spread the fake or inaccurate word. - The hunger for decentralized power
many people hate the governors and people in power! that's not something new. and they don't see the ability in themselves to protest in a right and effective way. so the rights are seen GONE! Now what they can do? generating and spreading fake news and feel like a warrior, in a whispering campaign! Social media and decentralized era have helped them also.
what technology have brought up to defend our right?
Our right to what? seriously? it's obvious!
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep learning have had some achievements in spotting and detecting the fake news. I will give you few sources to read about it, since I haven't deeply studied them yet:
- https://towardsdatascience.com/i-trained-fake-news-detection-ai-with-95-accuracy-and-almost-went-crazy-d10589aa57c
- http://www.fakenewschallenge.org/
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8305411/
what shall we do?
Ok, the world is full of poo-news and shit-content, with loads of intentional and/or unintentional people generating and distributing junk content and others who crave for such rumors and useless things...!
keep calm and educate others
Try to encourage people not to accept anything they see online. Wikipedia is a 98% accurate source of good content, but that 2% counts! viral news on social media, messaging apps etc they can be easily wrong. So everybody should take strong measures before hitting that SHARE button!look for engagement
Contents with high engagements, can be measured with true or fake stamp easier. So contents with more attention and reflection from the society, can be judged better.be part of the game!
for the same reason mentioned above, it is very important if you see fake news, to engage and let others know your facts which result you in not believing that content.encourage people to read more books
no comments here!
like always, don't forget that
@originalworks
please begin the articles how to trust content about middle east soon.
Don't trust anything about middle east, no matter what the source is!
Take this advice twice a day 😎