Stop Spreading Fake News! -By Ahmad Jamiu

In a century when the internet should be a powerful tool to educate, inform and not misinform people, the preponderance of fake news on social media lately is an emerging threat and calls for serious concerns. Fake news creators exploit the fact that it is easier for people to just share contents than evaluate or even read them. Many a time, people share news content that they themselves have not even read and have not bothered to confirm its authenticity— they merely share because it suits their ego and conforms with their desperate wish! The purveyors of fake news are even more dangerous threats than the creators; because the former provides the much needed social wings for these concocted lies to fly around; thereby spreading ignorance like the maiden rain succeeding a long period of drought.

There is also confirmation bias which I lightly refer to as ‘this must be true’ syndrome. Whether the information is true or not, it must be true. That perhaps could be a novel social disorder that needs as much urgency as the  cure for COVID-19. People tend to accept and share news that confirm their natural bias for a person, an event, an organization or a situation. For instance, in this era of COVID-19 pandemic, people are more likely to spread news with the caption ‘COVID-19 cure has been found’ (even when it is not true) just because they want the cure to be found. Fake news are often deliberately released to provoke a premeditated response from a targeted audience. Political inclination, tribal affiliation and other mundane considerations are some of the factors that make fake news go viral. The resultant effect of fake news circulation, even among the so called ‘educated’, is abysmal ignorance with grave consequences for the gullible audience.

Next time information is shared with you and you develop an insatiable urge to forward it to others, check out for the following:

1. Publisher’s credibility: How credible is the publisher? What is the publisher’s index in the comity of other publishers?

2. Check the source: is this information available on other sites? Why haven’t other reputable media sites reported same?

3. Be able to differentiate between a blog and a full-fledged reputable website. Many sites create fake news to attract momentary traffic to their websites, not minding the grave consequence of ignorance or misinformation on the populace.

4. Check the quality. Are there spelling errors or dramatic punctuations?

5. You can also fact-check information before sharing. There are several of these networks on the internet. I’d provide some: FactCheck.org, International Fact-Checking Network(IFCN) etc.

You may be indifferent to the ugly scourge of fake news because it does not directly affect your person or livelihood. But when it does, you may not recover from the rude shock that accompanies such brutal murder of truth without remorse—-reason why you must stop the spread of fake news!

Ahmad Jamiu