Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern World

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Jscampos
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Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern World

Post by Jscampos »

Our modern world has reached an unprecedented level of freedom when it comes to information. Human history has never seen a moment like this wherein any individual has the ability to publish and spread ideas at such a scale that practically anyone can, to an extent, influence the minds of entire populations. However, with this progress, we must accept, are challenges that come with it. False news and information is becomming rampant and unfortunately many people are easily manipulated by these. I believe that freedom of expression and information is vital to our modern civilization (though feel free to express otherwise if you wish) that is why I believe that simple cencorship does not provide a true solution. Therefore I pose this problem to you philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, artists, programmers and other bright minds of our digital age. "How can we help,teach or show people to think more deeply about their world, to take the effort and think with reason and logic rather than to simply take things at face value especially information. Because right now false news in social media seems to be like the superstitions of the past, they take hold of people's lives and they mislead those who simply believe them." I hope each of you can help in finding a solution and feel free to repost this and proposed solutions in other forums and even in social media because this may be one of the major challenges of our age.
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Empiricist-Bruno
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Re: Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern Wo

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Jsc, the good thing about all the fake news going around is that you have to start to wonder about why it is that you care about it anyway.

In a society where your political power is limited to voting once every 4 years in an election where the only 2 candidates that have a serious chance at winning are both supported and financed by the same group of wealthy people, your political power is a joke and so to fit you with suitable news, these news must be a joke too.

In my opinion, without proportional representation in fair elections, you can talk until you're blue in the face about what to do about false news and it won't make a difference.

The problem is that only a minority of people seem to understand this. Only a minority of people seem to be able to get to the truth or care about it. School teachers are to blame for that. We need better education. I like this topic; thanks for bringing it up.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern Wo

Post by Burning ghost »

All news is merely an ideological re-presentation.

Some people simply believe anything they hear. Most of us have, and will be, told things and accept then without much consideration.

If education was better there would probably be less acceptance, more questioning and more demands from the public.
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WorldThief
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Re: Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern Wo

Post by WorldThief »

Fake news has always existed and always will. There are rumors, legends, he-said-she-said mutations, outright lies, half truths, information prioritized deceptively, headlines crafted toward an ideological bias, etc...

Combatting fake news may be an important measure to take on social media sites, and in news outlets of any kind. But the most important factor is judgment. Why is it that some people can identify something as fake and others cannot? And what about the half-truths that are even more prevalent in mainstream media? Media literacy and criticism should be taught in high school or perhaps earlier, because being able to read is meaningless without being able to distinguish fact from fiction.
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Re: Solutions to False News and Information In Our Modern Wo

Post by LuckyR »

WorldThief wrote:Fake news has always existed and always will. There are rumors, legends, he-said-she-said mutations, outright lies, half truths, information prioritized deceptively, headlines crafted toward an ideological bias, etc...

Combatting fake news may be an important measure to take on social media sites, and in news outlets of any kind. But the most important factor is judgment. Why is it that some people can identify something as fake and others cannot? And what about the half-truths that are even more prevalent in mainstream media? Media literacy and criticism should be taught in high school or perhaps earlier, because being able to read is meaningless without being able to distinguish fact from fiction.
Good point, the issue isn't the rise of fake news, it is the drop in news consumer intelligence.
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