The 2016 American Presidential Election has caused a series of discussions on many unsolved issues, one being that fake news in social media outlets. When the public are participating in the election, they can share information to others and express their own opinions on candidates and their policies. In the past, these activities are not that easy as today since people were lack of access to latest information, and they didn’t have enough platforms for arguing and sharing. However, as social media rise and become one of the most important information source, the public now find that they are at the best information age because information becomes easily attainable through simple click on the website link. Compared to traditional media, social media like twitter and Facebook serve as the platforms for every person, not just journalist or professional, to share information and making comments. What is more important is that, the public believe social media can make information more transparent and help them explore some secrets that they can only imagine before.


As countless information flow into our world from social media, people feel their curiosity satisfied, yet many of them are actually killing truth and spreading fake. The 2016 American Presidential Election is a good case that causes the attention of professionals and social commentators, leading them explore the very basic issue of information: The credibility of information. However, unlike what they often meet before, misinformation on social media is now creating more serious social impact and the worse problem is, the public haven’t realized the crisis and effective ways for defending truth are scarce.

In the early December of 2016, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost election not long before, warned that fake news was an epidemic with “real world consequences” and she had called for urgent action to stop the spread of fake news. In fact, during the last American Presidential Election, fake news was always one of the key factors that affect social opinion. For candidate Hillary, some made-up stories led the public to suspect the integrity of this possible future president, which may have affected the result of the important national affair.  The story of Pizzagate was one of the most famous events led by misinformation during that period. In early November, a news on Twitter claimed that Hillary was organizing child- trafficking in a restaurant in Washington. This news was shared by users on social media widely. At first social media users just took it as a topic of conversation and most people who were in the group were the opponents of Hillary. Also curious people on the Internet became more and more skeptical since there was no any official of Hillary to clarify the fact. Then as the conspiracy theory spread like virus on social media, the owners of the restaurant received hundreds of threats from the theory’s believer. The event finally reached its peak not long after. On December 4, 2016, a 28 -year -old man fired three shots in the restaurant and claimed that he planned to conduct a self-investigation of the truth behind Pizzagate conspiracy theory. However, the fact is that he was cheated, there was no any child hidden in the restaurant. After the drama, the man was then arrested by police for protecting public safety. Besides Pizzagate, some fake news like Hillary was selling weapons to ISIS, FBI agent who investigated Hillary was found dead in apartment murder-suicide also spread like virus on social media. 

It’s hard to say if fake news really leads to the final failure of Hillary, but there is no doubt that those hoaxes have damaged the lady’s reputation and political career. Also this is the first time that fake news causes such concern in society. According to Nicky Woolf in his article “Obama Is Worried about Fake News on Social Media-and We Should Too”, fake news on social media was showing a crazy increase in shares and comments during the 2016 American Presidential Election. Even the president of America, Barack Obama, described the online information as “Everything is true and nothing is true.”  In his interview, the anxious president pointed out that “If we can’t discriminate between serious argument and propaganda, then we have problems.” “Everything is true and nothing is true” appropriately reflects the dark side of new information age, that means information we receive is showing a terrible decreasing in credibility. The concern is wide. For knowing American’s attitude toward fake news, Pew Research Center conducts a survey in 2016, the result is that 64% of American say fabricated news make a great deal of confusion about the fact of current events.

Now you may have some idea on why fake news on social media is an issue. From the president and candidates to common people, fake news is becoming a huge concern of them.

To figure out how those happen and finally become a social concern, we must go back to the very origin of fake news on social media. There are several questions that need to be answered: Why do so many people believe fake news and how those hoaxes spread like virus on Internet? Or even in real world?

According to Joe Dziemianowicz in his article “Why Fake News Thrives-People can’t trust their own memories: study,” people may tend to believe the memory which they never experienced after receiving it for many of times. This phenomenon is called memory implantation, which has been studied since the mid-1990s.  Consider how some fake news become popular, they commonly have a great amount of share. Especially during a special period like the past presidential election, fake news that targets candidates become extremely popular among social media users. For audience who are exposure to those made-up news, it is very hard to ignore them since almost everyone is talking about fake stories, whether they believe it or not. As a result, bystanders become more interested at those crazy and unbelievable stories. What is worse is that, with the convenience of social media, users can share misinformation by simple click and make comments based on their personal bias. For example, people who see the rivals of their ideal candidates get in trouble with fake are more likely to share those fake news, sometimes they may even add some personal comments that disturb other’s understanding.

In addition to mental factor, there is another reason why many American would rather trust fake news on social media than main stream media. That is, tradition main stream media is losing credibility in the public. As the most important part of journalism, main stream media is always seen as symbol of authority and credibility. However, there is a decreasing trend in the trust between American audience and main stream media. According to a survey conducted by GALLUP from 1997 to 2016, “only 32 percent of American saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentages points from last year.” This trend has kept decreasing for over 20 years from 53 percent in 1997 to 32 percent in 2016 although there are years that seems to be stable. Consider if American tend to have less trust in mass media, what can be the main source for them to receive information and who can they trust? That is to say, on this hand, social media is not the only one to blame. When more and more main stream media join the group to criticize social media, they may have ignored the reason why many American would rather trust fake news than real stories offered by mass media. In Greta Susteren’s article “Who’s to blame for fake news,” the author points out that compared to real stories, hoaxes no longer sound or read too different from them. Sometimes fake story looks even better than real one. In other word, many main stream media are offering information which has fewer context and sourcing. For online rating and clicks, reporters show more apparent bias in their articles, which makes it more difficult for opponent to trust them. 

Since the problem has become a social concern, it is necessary to consider the future of information. For solutions, there are mainly two ways: To solve it totally or to improve.

Unfortunately, the spread of fake news and people’s distrust on authority are nearly impossible to overcome. If we go back to the very origin of fake information, the fact is that most people who help the spread of fake news, are using their right. In the US, there is no powerful law to stop people or organization from making and spreading misinformation. Only until victims feel their personal right harmed hugely by those hoaxes then they can protect themselves with the weapons of law. However, the fact is that most victims do not follow this step due to limited cases for learning and difficulties on finding source. In many situations, fake news on social media target celebrities for more clicks and attention but it is hard to see those famous people protect themselves. On the contrary, for reducing the social impact and make loss on reputation least, they would rather keep silent. To some extent, the phenomenon of fake news on social media can be associated with a long term issue we face: The conflict between freedom of speech and personal privacy. According to Daniel J Solove, who is considered to be one of the world’s leading experts in information privacy law, we are actually becoming less free because of free flow of information on Internet. In his work The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, the author has expressed his concern on this problem in 2007. “Information that was once scattered, forgettable, and localized is becoming permanent and searchable. Ironically, the free flow of information threatens to undermine our freedom in the future.” (12). When studying gossip and rumor on Internet, we can easily find some common features between them and fake news. They both have shocking content, conspiracy theories and aggressive political positions. Those stories target politicians like Hillary Clinton, entertainment stars, and even American institutions. However, as those activities do not offend law, no one is to be punished. In general, it’s nearly impossible to eliminate fake news, since social media gives them the right to protect their privacy. In other word, we haven’t reached the step that law and rule are strong enough to fix the conflict, at least for now.

But to become better doesn’t mean to become perfect, in fact, the future of information on social media isn’t that pessimistic as many of us feel. According to the same survey conducted by Pew Research Center, about 39% of American say that they are very confident in detecting fake news and 45% feel somewhat confident, which means it is still too early to say misinformation have dominated audience’s knowledge. Fortunately, since the fake news phenomenon has caused a huge amount of attention from public after the 2016 American Presidential Election, more and more people and organizations are joining the group to fight against hoaxes on Internet.

To slow down the spread of fake news and create more stable information environment, there is no doubt that the main duty is on social media companies. As criticism from public become heavy, social media companies like Facebook and Google are also experiencing a crisis. They are blamed for less control over misinformation. As a result, those companies are considering how to save information and save themselves.

 For solution, labor-intensive human checking of facts and humans flag of cite as fake are the best choices for now. In fact, there have been many fact-checker organizations like FactCheck.org and Snopes.com which aim to defend the truth and eliminate fakes, most of them are nonprofit. However, their impacts are limited. As people use social media for convenience so all they want is less movement and more enjoyment. Those fact-checker websites are independent of social media so most American won’t refer to them when they find some suspicious information. It takes more effort to do so. That is to say, companies should have their own systems and labor for detecting fake news and connect them to social media. Employees who are responsible for detecting fake news should have clear mind when making judgement on the credibility of information. As a matter of fact, this process doesn’t take too much effort since misinformation commonly have weak evidence. Beyond that, it is necessary for social media companies to set up partnership between themselves and fact-checking organizations since those organizations have more experience in this field. Once companies target hoaxes, they can block the advertisement from the source websites, reducing the amount of fake news which aim to make profit through people’s clicks on social media. In addition, public’s power is valuable. There are people who are fighting against the spread of fake news all the time. They make comments under news and point out suspicious points but always get ignored. For social media companies, they must value the report of some users because they are free and efficient labor for detecting fake news. After finding fake news and their source, a  warning is necessary. If there is an apparent mark saying “Suspicious Source”, that audience will tend to consider more about the credibility when reading. They may keep far away from suspicious websites. These measures are not just talk. In fact, many social media companies are making a difference and claim their determination on stopping fake news. According to Mike Isaac in his article “Facebook Mounts Effort to Limit Tide of Fake News,” Facebook, which is one of the biggest social media in the world, has made effort like making it easier to flag content that may be untrue. Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in his post “We have a responsibility to make sure Facebook has the greatest positive impact on the world.”

But no matter how we try our best to stop the spread of fake news, the problem will always exist. Fixing fake news problem is like answering the question: “How to eliminate crime?” Truly many people may say: “We can, but not now.” Unlike those who still hold positive attitude toward the future of this issue, there are also some people who feel pessimistic. In the article “Fact-Checking Won’t Save Us from Fake News.” author Borel Brooke points out that since more and more audience begin to rely on fake news for entertainment, some measures like fact-checking won’t fix the problem. The biggest issue is still on ourselves. People are becoming smarter, more independent and more free than ever before, but also, we are becoming more impatient. All we want is speed and convenience. If we can be more neutral when making points and consider other people who may get confused, made-up stories which have apparent bias may not attract us. If we still believe the importance of truth and the harm of fake, we will consider more before clicking “share.”

According to a study conducted by Stanford History Education Group, young students show a weak ability in judging the credibility of news online. This is not a good news since young people are the future and they are playing more and more important role in the information age. It’s terrible to image a future world which is full of fake and distrust. Science knowledge and social opinion is misled. Once everyone finds that they can only use misinformation instead of truth to protect themselves, fake finally become “truth”.

Thanks to the social media, we are now at an information age that can be only imagined before. However, the challenge from misinformation on Internet is still hard to overcome. The whole society still have a long way to go. For social media users, try to keep positive and always remember that you may have help the spread of fake news if you click the “share” button without any judgement. When making comment, try to keep calm and do not let some personal emotion dominate yourself. We are not just killing fake. We are defending truth.
