As You Read, Think About: How can we stop the spread of fake news? Y ou’re scrolling through your Twitter feed when all of a sudden, a shocking headline fills your screen: “England BANS VIDEO GAMES!!” Outraged, you text your friends, who in turn text their friends. Could the United States be next, you wonder? Soon, millions of people across the country
Check out our video at junior.scholastic.com for easy tips on how to spot made-up stories, evaluate an author’s sources, and identify ads on social media. VIDEO
one of the nation’s founders, was himself guilty of spreading false stories. He attempted to increase support for the war by writing articles that falsely claimed that the British had teamed up with
Native Americans to murder colonial women and children. In the late 1800s, newspapers competed for readers by printing shocking headlines and overdramatizing stories. Sometimes writers made up quotes altogether and cited experts who didn’t exist. The practice of creating scandalous news came to be known as yellow journalism. False Stories Spread Online But fake news really took off with the rise of the internet and social media. When your parents and grandparents were kids, most people learned about current events from a few respected newspapers or national news shows on major TV networks. For the most part, that
are sharing the article on Facebook and Twitter. Within hours, the story has gone viral. The only problem? The article is fake—and you fell for it. Made-up stories like that one are designed to look real but are completely or partly untrue. Sometimes it’s easy to tell when an article is false—words might be misspelled or randomly capitalized, or the headline might contain multiple exclamation points. But more often than not, fake-news writers are careful to make their stories seem real by including headlines, details, and data that sound believable. Such articles may seem harmless, but they can have real consequences. For example, experts say that false stories may have influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election. During the campaign,
news came straight from professional journalists, who had been trained to conduct thorough research, fact-check their stories, and report the facts. Today, however, almost anyone can write and post articles online—and potentially reach a large audience. Many fake news sites currently exist, including ones with official-sounding names, such as The Political Insider. Of course, plenty of trustworthy websites report news, including The New
Many experts worry that fake news stories could influence next year’s presidential election.
made-up articles about the two main candidates—including current president Donald Trump—were shared on Facebook nearly 38 million times. Many people now worry that deceptive stories could affect the outcome of next year’s presidential election. That would be a major problem, says Alan C. Miller. He’s the founder of the News Literacy Project, an organization that helps students learn how to spot
misinformation. Part of being a good citizen means knowing what’s happening in the world around us— and being mindful that not everything we see on the internet and social media is true. “The overwhelming majority of information available online has not been verified,” says Miller. “It has not been approved by an editor or signed off on by a fact-checker. So we all need to have a healthy amount of skepticism about what we see.” History of Lies The act of influencing people with fake stories may seem new, but it’s been around for centuries. During the American Revolution (1775-1783), Benjamin Franklin,
York Times (nytimes.com), The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com), and Junior Scholastic (junior.scholastic.com). In addition, many politicians have begun using the term fake news to refer to factual stories they simply disagree with or don’t like. That’s making it even harder for Americans to distinguish fact from fiction—and discouraging people from believing stories that are real. Fake News Means Big Money Why might someone want to post a fake story in the first place? During presidential campaigns, people may be trying to influence Americans’ beliefs and, in turn, how they vote in the election. In other cases, the answer is simple: to make money.
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