Psych Blog #5

     In class discussion this week we talked about fake and sloppy news. With the ease of sharing articles on social media with the click of a button, it is easy for false information to spread quickly. Also, people on social media generally have the mindset of quickly skimming information to catch the highlights instead of deeply reading the information. This absence of critical thinking and checking the validity of a document accelerates the mass distribution of false information. A relatively benign example of this, that I have come across, is people sharing a weather forecast for a big snow that is supposed to hit in the next couple of days. When I clicked on the article to read about this snow I saw that it was dated several years ago. Most people just read the catchy headline “Possible Foot of Snow to Impact the Area Friday” and don’t click on the site to verify that it is accurate and up to date information. But what happens when the misinformation spread is not as benign?

     Social media undoubtedly had a huge impact in last year’s United States’ presidential election when Donald J. Trump was elected 45^th president. Under the impression that any publicity, positive or negative, is good publicity, Mr. Trump basked in the light of media attention. With the condemnation of most major Television News Agencies for being biased as either pro democratic or pro republican, many people turned away from TV news. People began taking to social media to talk about and attain a lot of their information for the candidates at hand. Not that this information was any more unbiased or true, but the process of friends sharing news articles seemed to make them more legitimate, especially if they were not from one of the “corrupted” major news organizations.

     The huge debate surrounding Russia’s involvement with the United States election concerns their usage of social media. Many officials argue that Russia influenced the election in favor of Trump by creating thousands of fake social media accounts with pro-Trump propaganda. From criticisms of the Democratic Party, to advertisements for Trump, to organizing political rallies, all under the guise of posts from a fellow American, Russia was able to allegedly meddle in the election. If this is all true and this played a large enough role to turn the tide of the election, what does this have to say about the impact of social media and where most people acquire their news?

     Mr. Trump played a major role in painting certain news organizations as invalid and corrupt by labeling them as “Fake News.” This allowed him to ease his way out of many counterarguments by simply dismissing their argument as invalid, instead of actually having to debate the issue at hand; a tactic commonly referred to as the ad hominem fallacy. The term “Fake News” has spread like wildfire not only in the United States, but through other parts of the world as well. Next week in class we seek to uncover the true definition of this term and how it has evolved to its usage in mainstream media today.