{"id":636,"date":"2020-01-29T15:28:58","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T12:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/?p=636"},"modified":"2022-10-13T16:10:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T13:10:48","slug":"social-media-and-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/2020\/01\/29\/social-media-and-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media and Misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cheuk Leung<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog post was produced as part of the course \u201cSocial Media,\nIdeologies, and Ethics in the United States\u201d at the University of Turku. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internet and social media have become an extensive, large-scale,\neasy-to-use, real-time information publishing platform. It has become an open\nplatform for discussion, dissemination of knowledge, expressing ideas, and sharing\ndaily life. One advantage of the immediate dissemination of news and debates is\nthat because the content is no longer controlled by institutions but by the\npeople, the coverage of an issue can be more extensive. Moreover, instead of\npassively accessing news and content, people actively participate in\ndiscussions and share their ideas. Also, mobile technology and real-time streaming\nthrough social media have entered the world, changing the way people consume\nand generate news. With the popularity of real-time streaming media platforms,\nmore traditional social media have expanded into the field as well. Examples of\nthis are Facebook Live and Instagram Live. As mentioned above, as citizen\njournalism is reshaping the relationship between media producers and consumers,\nsharing and publishing news is no longer reserved for professional journalists.\nMoreover, unfiltered video streaming can be an advantage for citizen journalism\nbecause there is no censorship involved and journalists can provide their\naudience with first-hand images of live events. Reporting on social media also\ngenerates more audience engagement to create an interactive journalistic\nexperience with direct feedback from the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when compared with traditional news sources, such as news channels and newspapers, the credibility of content circulating on social media platforms is questionable due to the contributors\u2019 independence and freedom of expression. Fake news, misinformation, and false information have become by-products of the digital communication ecosystem because of simple forwarding and sharing actions on social networks. This has alarming worldwide ramifications. Various government agencies have implemented regulations to penalize sites that circulate misinformation. Many social media platforms have announced actions to limit the spread of fake content. However, with the aid of clickbait, these problems have still spread across the internet, and this has proven to be very dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Image: Twitter<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at Hong Kong’s democratic protests as an example. Fake\nonline news disseminated carefully edited videotapes and selected stories,\nexacerbating fear, hatred, and confusion among Hong Kong residents. When\nprotesters at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University set a police vehicle ablaze,\nphotographs allegedly featuring a badly burned police officer at the wheel were\ncirculating online within hours. Chinese state media also released footage of\nthe Shenzhen People’s Armed Police military trucks and tanks, claiming they\nwere heading to the Hong Kong border. However, according to fact-checking by\nthe press, these claims are wrong. Due to China’s online censorship, Chinese\ncitizens cannot read news reports in certain media. Facebook, Twitter, and\nYouTube have also found that state-backed media have spread misinformation\nthrough fake accounts and advertisements. We can clearly see what false\ninformation can bring about with the aid of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan,\nE., & Blundy, R. (2019). Fake news amplifies fear and confusion in Hong\nKong | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP. Retrieved 8 December 2019, from https:\/\/www.hongkongfp.com\/2019\/11\/21\/fake-news-amplifies-fear-confusion-hong-kong\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meel,\nP., & Vishwakarma, D. (2019). Fake news, rumor, information pollution in\nsocial media and web: A contemporary survey of state-of-the-arts, challenges\nand opportunities. Expert Systems with Applications, 112986. doi:\n10.1016\/j.eswa.2019.112986 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheuk Leung This blog post was produced as part of the course \u201cSocial Media, Ideologies, and Ethics in the United States\u201d at the University of Turku. The internet and social media have become an extensive, large-scale, easy-to-use, real-time information publishing platform. It has become an open platform for discussion, dissemination of knowledge, expressing ideas, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19734,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}